Editor’s note: Morning Money is a free version of POLITICO Pro Financial Services morning newsletter, which is delivered to our s each morning at 5:15 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro. Finance ministers and central bank leaders are about to descend on Washington for the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank. "It's going to be chaotic," says Douglas Rediker, a former U.S. representative on the IMF’s executive board. A recession is lurking as the world reels from Covid-19, persistent inflation, rapidly rising interest rates, commodity volatility and a weakened banking system. That’s on top of a growing list of international conflicts. China, the U.S. and Europe are at odds with each other for various reasons, not to mention that the world continues to be divided over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Your MM host has a new piece on the mood surrounding the meetings and how it might weigh on the agenda. The uncertain outlook and rising tensions set up major challenges for world leaders as they try to address food and energy constraints, figure out how to ease debt burdens on developing countries and tackle climate change. U.S. officials led by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will try to project cautious optimism, but will also face questions about Washington’s response to last month’s regional bank failures and to what extent there is potential spillover in the global economy. A big set of issues looming over the meetings is the role of China, which just underwent a major government shakeup and is increasingly at odds with the U.S. over trade and technology. Questions include whether China should have a larger say in the governance of international institutions commensurate with its economic power, and whether it will help with efforts to ease the debt load of developing countries. The stakes are high. The IMF on Wednesday warned that the world could lose trillions of dollars of future economic output if it splits into competing geopolitical factions. "There are a lot of different threads going into these meetings and they're not necessarily harmonized in one narrative," said Rediker, now managing partner of International Capital Strategies. "You've got them all happening at once at a time when there's no particular leadership that is driving the agenda or the narrative in one direction or another." The mood, he said, will be “disjointed.” What’s your take on the IMF-World Bank get-together? — Let us know: Zach Warmbrodt, Sam Sutton.
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