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So says Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, interviewed above at an International Finance Conference. Where he gave a speech, here. “America’s grand plan”.
The World Bank and IMF “have to get back to factory settings”. Back to doing what they were set up to do. There has been too much “Mission Creep”, especially in recent years following a U.S. obsession with all matters “woke”: social justice, DEI, Critical Race Theory, Climate Change zealotry, and so on.
People who hate on America gonna keep on hating on America, no matter what. They won’t know or won’t remember, or will wilfully ignore: that the post-war global infrastructure — a huge success — was set up by America.
The Marshall Plan for a Europe, the Breton Woods financial structure, the Japanese Constitution, the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, later the WTO. All these kept world peace (ok, not perfectly…), and massively grew world trade. All arose out of a patrician, a noble, a generous, a humanist impulse in America. One can pick and be picky, but it was and remains a grand vision for the benefit of mankind. One that is not helped by large, aggressive mercantilist late-comers.
This vast system is in need of reform. That’s what Scott Bessent is saying. That’s what Trump and his team are aiming to do. Against the very stiff headwinds of the opposition, who oppose literally everything — and I mean “literally” literally — no matter how commonsensical. (They’ve now decided they love ultra-violent Central American gangs, just because Trump wants to deport them…for goodness sake!).
So these are the historic times we live in. Of a president, flawed to be sure, but nonetheless determined as none before him this century, to take on the torrid task of international trade and economic reform.
These are the Interesting Times we live in.
The current tariff battle needs time to work (or not). It’s too early to say if it’s a success or failure. But its goals are correct and clear, as Bessent lays out, and there some shoots of optimism. The main battle is with China. And there are glimmers in the tunnel. At least I like to think I see them. As I merrily mix my metaphors. “Thorny shoals ahead”, my mate Ross used to say. Well, says the optimist, we can do it!
By the way, many people, Democrats mainly, criticise “America First” as some kind of horrid, xenophobic, authoritarian right-wing thing. They forget, or don’t know, that it was first used by Democratic president Woodrow Wilson, back around 1916, and that it was picked up and used by Bill Clinton. Just one more of the many cases of “it’s good for me, but not for thee”.
