Follow Ryan on Twitter | Send tips and insights to rheath@politico.com With Congress out, this week in Washington will be dominated by economic and financial discussions, with with dozens of finance ministers and central bankers — and the occasional national leaders such as Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki and Barbados’ Mia Mottley — in town for the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings. Read on for the insights of IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva, who sat down with Global Insider to preview the week and share her thoughts on China’s new leadership. Key questions confronting visiting officials: — Can they keep a united front in dealing with vulnerabilities in banks and other lenders? — Can the IMF and World Bank play nice together and revitalize the development finance system? Or will they be divided on climate, and engaged in turf wars? — Is the IMF lending at a record rate (as its officials insist) or in the middle of a paralyzing identity crisis (as The Economist alleges)? THE WEEK AHEAD MONDAY It’s a full week for the global lending institutions, with officials arriving from today and continuing discussions until Thursday evening. The goal: put on a united front, to calm markets and prevent a lost decade of growth. It’s an easier morning at the White House: President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will host the 2023 White House Easter Egg Roll. Forever a teacher, the first lady will continue her theme of “EGGucation” for the event. TUESDAY Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will meet with their Philippine counterparts in a show of unity amid heightening tensions between Manila and Beijing. WEDNESDAY Biden begins a visit to Ireland (after arriving late Tuesday). If Biden has a happy place for foreign visits, this is it: at the intersection of history, diplomacy, allyship and retail politicking. Here’s how Ireland is getting ready for a visit from the most Irish U.S. president since Kennedy, timed to align with the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace agreement. THURSDAY POLITICO is co-hosting an IMF and World Bank meetings cocktail reception for top officials and their teams at the residence of EU Ambassador Stavros Lambrinidis. If you’d like to request an invitation, email Global Insider. FRIDAY Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen briefs the IMF/World Bank meetings. EMMANUEL MACRON’S RISKY SPHERES OF INFLUENCE Speaking to POLITICO on his way back from China over the weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron gave an interview that’s raising big questions about the transatlantic relationship. Read the full story (or here en français) by our European Editor-in-Chief Jamil Anderlini and Senior France Correspondent Clea Caulcutt. On strategic autonomy: Macron emphasized the need for Europe to develop independent capabilities that would enable the EU to become the world’s “third superpower” (after the U.S. and China) to avoid the “greatest risk” Europe faces: getting “caught up in crises that are not ours” and becoming “just America’s followers.” Taiwan is where the rubber hits the road: The U.S. has pledged to defend Taiwan: “The question Europeans need to answer,” Macron said, is “is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.” Marco Rubio fires back: Sen. Rubio (R-Fla.) dropped a video in which he says, if “their position now is they are not going to pick sides between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, maybe we shouldn’t be picking sides either. Maybe we should basically say we’re going to focus on Taiwan and the threats that China poses, and you guys handle Ukraine.” “So we need to find out: Does Macron speak for Macron or does Macron speak for Europe?” Rubio added. SAVE THE DATE, MAYBE: Several European diplomats told POLITICO that an EU-US summit is about to be scheduled for October. No date has been sent, but the likely venue is Washington. Why an October summit? The next big transatlantic trade fight is primed to explode, per POLITICO’s trade team. Negotiators from Brussels and Washington are scrambling to solve a five-year dispute over steel and aluminum dating back to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on European imports. They have until October to get a deal but are still so far apart that European officials now fear the chances of an agreement are slim. Without a deal, both sides could reimpose billions of dollars worth of trade tariffs on each other’s goods — potentially spreading well beyond steel to hit products including French wines, U.S. rum, Polish vodka and American denim jeans. VIEW FROM THE TOP — INTERVIEW WITH IMF’s KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA Global Insider sat down with Georgieva, the IMF managing director, on Thursday to get her take on the status of the world economy and the IMF’s role in it. Georgieva had just arrived back from meetings with China’s new economic leadership team — making her the first global leader to gain those insights. Watch the full interview (25 minutes) | Read POLITICO’s takeaways, or grab the highlights below Real risks ahead: “There is simply no way that interest rates would go up so much after being low for so long and there would be no vulnerabilities. Something is going to go boom.” But this is not a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis: “I am more optimistic today … but when you look under the hood, there are vulnerabilities. The financial system, both banking and non-banking, is much cleaner,” compared with 2008 when the system was full of overvalued assets. Is the IMF paralyzed? “No we are not. No, we are not in an identity crisis. What we hear from our members is a very different story. Ninety-six countries have turned to us (in recent years). That article came on the day my staff reported to me that we had record lending.” Risk of U.S. debt default: “They cannot default. If the U.S. was to default, when you talk about inflation: it’s going to be multiple times harder.” Who should we follow in Beijing, now that you’ve met the whole leadership? “I was very positively impressed by the new Premier Li Qiang. Very friendly, very approachable, very clearly committed to China opening up to foreign investors. I am more hopeful: It’s one thing to read someone’s biography, it’s another to sit down with them. He’s very committed to the IMF.” China’s approach to third country debt: “It takes far too long for debt resolution. They have to speed up their participation” working with countries in trouble. “They came around on Sri Lanka, they came around on Chad. Now we want to see the same progress on Ethiopia, on Ghana.” On Dilma Rousseff being appointed head of the BRICS development bank: “She has the stature of having been president of a large emerging market (Brazil). I have a personal reason to be a fan: her father is Bulgarian (Georgieva is Bulgarian). We will be getting lunch.” GLOBAL ECONOMY DATA POINTS — The IMF projects global growth to remain around 3 percent over the next five years, the lowest medium-term growth forecast since 1990. — A new report by the Debt Relief for a Green and Inclusive Recovery Project, notes that “external debt levels and service payments have more than doubled since the 2008 global financial crisis” in emerging economies to nearly $4 trillion, and “climate vulnerable countries have some of the most significant debt distress”
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