The IMF needed a progressive vision and US leadership. Both were absent

Internationalism is weak, diluted by the Covid-19 pandemic and the fight for hegemony between China and the US

The International Monetary Fund was eerily quiet this week. Normally, the IMF's two buildings in Washington DC would have been full of finance ministers and central bank governors gathered together to discuss the state of the global economy. This year, the meeting was a virtual yet still an important one: the most significant since the financial crisis.

Piecing together the story of the spring meetings of the IMF is a bit like peeling the skin off an onion, with the health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic the outer layer. Since it was created at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, the IMF has seen many crises, but nothing like this one. Never before has it needed advice from epidemiologists to do the predictions for its flagship publication: the World Economic Outlook.

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