The resignation of the President of the World Bank poses a possible challenge to Trump in developing countries



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Trump repeatedly reiterated his disregard for multilateral institutions and questioned US foreign aid commitments. It is therefore likely that his power to appoint a new president will be challenged by emerging economies that have increasingly opposed American dominance over the global development bank.

On Monday, the White House did not say Monday whether Trump was considering appointing a new president or providing a list of potential candidates.

The Trump administration has a close working relationship with Kim. Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and senior advisor, has developed a women's entrepreneurship initiative in partnership with the World Bank in 2017 with the goal of providing more than $ 1 billion in funding to small business owners .

In April 2017, Trump 's daughter presented the idea to Kim, who agreed to speed up the process. His involvement in the international fund was closely scrutinized by monitoring groups, who said the scheme could pave the way for potential conflicts of interest.

Ivanka Trump was also the subject of close scrutiny after briefly taking her father's place at the G20 table in July. with world leaders to help launch the loan program.

Kim defended the young Trump's effort at the top. "It's not a pretty little project," he said. "This is going to be a major driver of economic growth in the future … and it will promote gender equality at the same time."

Trump himself largely ignored the World Bank, surprising some who expected his administration to have harsher words for the lender. He also praised the outgoing president by calling him a "friend" and a "good guy" and suggesting that he could have chosen him himself. "I might have even named it, but I have not done it yet," Trump told G20 meetings in Germany in 2017.

Kim, who held the position since 2012 , redirected the focus of the bank on the private sector investment in development projects.

He announced Monday that he would be leaving his post well before the expiry of his term in late 2021. If Kim had served his term, Trump would have had the opportunity to appoint a successor only during a potential period. second term at the White House.

According to a statement from the bank, the outgoing president would join a firm specializing in infrastructure investments in developing countries and join the board of directors of a health organization that he founded thirty years ago.

"It has been a great honor to serve as president of this remarkable institution, filled with passionate individuals dedicated to the mission of ending extreme poverty in our lifetime," said Kim in a statement. a statement. "The work of the World Bank Group is more important than ever now that the aspirations of the poor are growing worldwide and that issues such as climate change, pandemics, famine and refugees continue to take hold. scale and become more complex ". [19659002] Since its inception at the end of the Second World War, the World Bank has been led by Americans, all of whom have been appointed by the President of the United States. The United States is the largest shareholder of the bank.

This practice has sparked criticism from some other countries, who have insisted that the bank focuses on lending to developing countries requires the participation of leaders from other regions.

The leader of the world. The sister organization of the bank, the International Monetary Fund, has always been European

President Barack Obama broke the tradition in 2012 by choosing Kim, who was then president of Dartmouth College. The former bank executives were from the financial world, but Kim – born in Seoul, South Korea, but raised in Iowa – is an anthropologist and doctor by training. Obama said at the time that it was "time for a development professional to lead the world's largest development agency".

He also considered candidates like Sen at the time. John Kerry, who became his secretary of state for the second term; and Susan Rice, then US ambassador to the UN, who would become her national security advisor.

Kim's appointment faced the challenge of Nigeria's finance minister. The first time since the founding of the bank, the American candidate met with serious opposition.

In the end, Kim garnered enough support from the bank's executive directors to become president, but the process of obtaining votes – what relatives of the bank describe as an "arm "- laid the foundation for the future challenges of American control. of the bank presidency.

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