Meera Gopal
The 2025 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank concluded recently in Washington, D.C., against a backdrop of rising protectionism and declining development finance. Although in the recent past, these meetings had become an arena for advancing the reform agenda on global development policy, this year’s official theme, “Jobs: The Path to Prosperity,” reflected the absence of any direct mention of “climate” from the official agenda. This omission appeared intentional, and came in the context of the first World Bank-IMF meeting since the new U.S. administration took office under President Donald Trump.
Unsurprisingly, global trade tensions dominated the discourse at the meetings. At the IMF’s curtain-raiser, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva offered a grim forecast, warning of economic headwinds driven by uncertainty over U.S. tariff policy. Many finance ministers used the meetings as an opportunity to seek bilateral arrangements to cushion the blow of recently announced, and then paused, “reciprocal” tariffs. Among them were also the delegations from South Asian economies, which could be hit with steep tariffs – Sri Lanka (44 percent), Bangladesh (37 percent), and Pakistan (29 percent).
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