The Trump administration will direct international financial institutions away from “work on climate change, gender, and social issues,” and back towards their core, financial mission, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Wednesday. This 180-degree reversal in America’s position comes as the Trump administration looks to “expand U.S. leadership in international institutions like the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and World Bank … to restore fairness to the international economic system.”

“America First does not mean America alone,” Bessent explained in a speech before the Institute of International Finance, located three blocks away from the Treasury Building. “The IMF and World Bank serve critical roles in the international system. And the Trump administration is eager to work with them — so long as they can stay true to their missions.”

But “the IMF has suffered from mission creep,” Bessent bemoaned. “The IMF was once unwavering in its mission of promoting global monetary cooperation and financial stability. Now it devotes disproportionate time and resources to work on climate change, gender, and social issues. These issues are not the IMF’s mission. And the IMF’s focus in these areas is crowding out its work on critical macroeconomic issues.”

The World Bank, likewise, “has strayed in certain respects from its initial mission,” Bessent continued. “The Bank should no longer expect blank checks for vapid, buzzword-centric marketing accompanied by half-hearted commitments to reform.

Bessent’s bold stance is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it represents a marked departure from the policy of the Biden administration. When its radical progressive agenda was stymied by the checks and balances in Congress, the Biden administration aggressively pushed the same agenda in international fora, such as the sovereignty-sapping amendments it proposed to the World Health Organization’s proposed pandemic treaty.

In 2023, President Biden nominated the current World Bank president, former Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga, to “steer the institution … to address global challenges … including climate change.” By contrast, Bessent insisted that the World Bank “prioritize affordability in energy investment. In most cases, this means investing in gas and other fossil fuel-based energy production.”

On February 10, President Trump issued an executive order in part directing the secretary of State to “conduct a review of all international intergovernmental organizations of which the United States is a member and provides any type of funding or other support … to determine which organizations … are contrary to the interests of the United States and whether such organizations … can be reformed.”

The United States is the leading contributor to both the IMF and the World Bank. Its most recent IMF quota was 17.42% of the total (approximately $110 billion in international reserve assets). The U.S. has also contributed the most to various World Bank institutions, including 16.73% of funds received by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) ($45.2 billion in 1944 dollars, equivalent to $768.3 billion in 2025 dollars), 18.11% for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) ($4.3 billion), and 18.36% for the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).

The United States therefore holds the largest share of the vote in these institutions: 16.49% of the vote at the IMF, 15.83% at the IBRD, 17.14% at the IFC, 9.71% at the International Development Association (IDA) (which did not list member donations), and 14.81% at the MIGA. Clearly, the U.S. would need to form a “coalition of the willing” to achieve significant changes, but as the largest contributor and largest vote-holder it is in the best position to do so.

At the very least, the U.S. holds firm control to prevent bad policy changes at the IRF. “Major policy decisions require 85% of the total voting share,” explains the Congressional Research Service. “With a voting share of 16.49% — the highest of any Fund member — the United States can unilaterally veto major policy decisions.”

The second reason Bessent’s aggressive rhetoric toward international institutions is noteworthy is because of the messenger. For Bessent does not boast the typical profile of a right-wing culture warrior. He is a career investor and hedge fund manager, identifies as gay, and spent more than a decade working for George Soros. So, when he is the one criticizing international institutions over their climate and gender policy, it should cause everyone to sit up and pay attention.

One reason why Bessent is the one delivering the message is that Congress established the Treasury Department as America’s point of contact with both the IMF and the World Bank through the Bretton Woods Agreements Act (BWAA) of 1944. Thus, Bessent’s remarks could have reflected the priorities of other, more conservative figures in Trump’s inner circle.

Yet it would be imprudent to overemphasize the intra-administration unity of Trump’s team. On Wednesday, Axios reported that Bessent and Elon Musk “got into a heated shouting match in earshot of President Trump and other officials” over who would head the IRS. “It was quite a scene. It was loud. And I mean, loud,” recalled one eyewitness (or, perhaps, earwitness?). At the very least, the incident demonstrates that Bessent is not going to carry water for other Trump aides with whom he disagrees.

It may be better to take Bessent’s remarks as simply representing his own views and the views of people like him. That is, he and other financial types may not be socially conservative, but they see woke dogma as a ridiculous imposition and bad for business. They just want financial institutions to focus on finance — one point on which dyed-in-the-wool conservatives can agree.

With President Trump’s resurgence, Wall Street investors like Bessent now feel unfettered from the Left’s authoritarian ideology, and they want to spread that freedom to institutions of international finance.