Mission: Impossible? Chancellor heads to the IMF with a very big challenge – and she’s not alone
There will be much to chew over at the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) spring meetings this week.
Central bankers and finance ministers will descend on Washington for its latest bi-annual gathering, a place where politicians and academics converge, all of them trying to make sense of what’s going on in the global economy.
Everything and nothing has changed since they last met in October – one man continues to dominate the agenda.
Six months ago, delegates were wondering if Donald Trump could win the election and what that might mean for tax and tariffs: How far would he push it? Would his policy match his rhetoric?
Donald Trump. Pic: Reuters
This time round, expect iterations of the same questions: Will the US president risk plunging the world’s largest economy into recession?
Yes, he put on a bombastic display on his so-called “Liberation Day”, but will he now row back? Have the markets effectively checked him?
Behind the scenes, finance ministers from around the world will be practising their powers of persuasion, each jostling for meetings with their US counterparts to negotiate a reduction in Trump’s tariffs.
That includes Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who is still holding out hope for a trade deal with the US – although she is not alone in that.
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The IMF’s economists have already made up their minds about Trump’s potential for damage.
Last week, they warned about the growing risks to financial stability after a period of turbulence in the financial markets, induced by Trump’s decision to ratchet up US protectionism to its highest level in a century.
By the middle of this week the organisation will publish its World Economic Outlook, in which it will downgrade global growth but stop short of predicting a full-blown recession.
Others are less optimistic.
Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, said last week: “Our new growth projections will include notable markdowns, but not recession. We will also see markups to the inflation forecasts for some countries.”
She acknowledged the world was undergoing a “reboot of the global trading system,” comparing trade tensions to “a pot that was bubbling for a long time and is now boiling over”.
She went on: “To a large extent, what we see is the result of an erosion of trust – trust in the international system, and trust between countries.”
IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva. Pic: Reuters
Don’t poke the bear
It was a carefully calibrated response. Georgieva did not lay the blame at the US’s door and stopped short of calling on the Trump administration to stop or water down its aggressive tariffs policy.
That might have been a choice. To the frustration of politicians past and present, the IMF does not usually shy away from making its opinions known.
Last year it warned Jeremy Hunt against cutting taxes, and back in 2022 it openly criticised the Liz Truss government’s plans, warning tax cuts would fuel inflation and inequality.
Taking such a candid approach with Trump invites risks. His administration is already weighing up whether to withdraw from global institutions, including the IMF and the World Bank.
The US is the largest shareholder in both, and its departure could be devastating for two organisations that have been pillars of the world economic order since the end of the Second World War.
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Here in the UK, Andrew Bailey has already raised concerns about the prospect of global fragmentation.
It is “very important that we don’t have a fragmentation of the world economy,” the Bank of England’s governor said.
“A big part of that is that we have support and engagement in the multilateral institutions, institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, that support the operation of the world economy. That’s really important.”
The Trump administration might take a different view when its review of intergovernmental organisations is complete.
That is the main tension running through this year’s spring meetings.
How much the IMF will say and how much we will have to read between the lines, remains to be seen.
A lawyer representing one of the co-founders of crypto mining service Hashflare has addressed how their criminal case may move forward after the pair received “self-deport” letters from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
In an April 11 filing in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, Hashflare co-founders Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin reported they had received a DHS letter directing them to “leave the United States” as part of a push by the Trump administration to effect mass deportations. The government letter contradicted orders from Judge Robert Lasnik, who restricted travel for Potapenko and Turogin as part of their bail conditions.
In February, the Estonian nationals pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud as part of a deal with authorities. Between 2015 and 2019, the two were responsible for defrauding Hashflare users out of more than $550 million. They also raised $25 million from investors in 2017, claiming they would establish a digital bank called Polybius. The firm was never created.
Indicted in October 2022, Potapenko and Turogin were arrested and held in Estonia before their extradition to the US in May 2024. Both have been free on bail since July 2024 but could face up to 20 years in prison each at sentencing.
Ordered to leave, forced to stay
“[Potapenko and Turogin each] got letters from DHS to their personal email saying ‘deport immediately,’” Reed Smith partner and defense counsel Mark Bini told Cointelegraph. “It caused some angst because [our client and his co-defendant], their conditions of release include that they comply with the law. And here you have this letter saying if you stay in the country, you’re breaking the law. And of course, their bail conditions say they can’t leave the Seattle area.”
Related: Russian Gotbit founder strikes $23M plea deal with US prosecutors
The DHS letters ordering certain people to “depart the United States immediately” were reportedly sent to thousands of immigrants who had used the government’s CBP One app to enter the country legally. However, some citizens reported receiving the same letter in US President Donald Trump’s attempts to effect deportations through his office.
Bini initially thought it was a possibility that the US government was suggesting that Potapenko or Turogin “self-deport” to Estonia after the Justice Department issued a memo hinting it would change its enforcement policy in criminal cases involving crypto. The Hashflare co-founders had been expected to remain in the jurisdiction until at least Aug. 14 for their sentencing hearings.
“I have not encountered this situation before, where you have essentially two folks in the federal government telling you conflicting things,” said Bini.
The attorney added that Potapenko or Turogin now carried letters with them at all times that stated DHS had deferred action on their “self-deportation” for one year in the event that authorities mistakenly tried to detain them and remove them from the country. Though the pair could still receive prison time, Potapenko, Turogin and Hashflare reported returning $400 million in crypto payments to users and “agreed to forfeit their interests in assets that the government froze in 2022.”
“We’re going to try and convince the judge to frankly side with DHS and let them self-deport to Estonia to their families because we believe that there was no actual financial harm to the customers of Hashflare,” said Bini. “It’s a weird [case] because for our clients, we want to be deported. Our clients are Estonian. Their families are Estonian.”
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Starmer and Zelenskyy discuss ending Russia’s ‘brutal war’ – as Putin says says he is open to bilateral talks on longer ceasefire
Sir Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke about ending Russia’s “brutal war” on Ukraine in their latest phone call on Easter Monday, as Vladimir Putin said he was open to bilateral talks.
The prime minister and Ukrainian president spoke on Monday afternoon, when Sir Keir “reiterated his iron-clad support for Ukraine“.
A Downing Street spokesperson added that the prime minister “said that the UK supports Ukraine’s calls for Russia to commit to a full ceasefire and that now is the time for Putin to show he is serious about ending his brutal war”.
“They discussed the latest developments on the Coalition of the Willing, and looked forward to further progress towards a just and lasting peace,” the spokesperson added.
Mr Zelenskyy later said on social media that he had a “good and detailed conversation” with the prime minister, and added Ukrainian officials will be in London for talks on ending the war with Russia on Wednesday.
“We are ready to move forward as constructively as possible, just as we have done before, to achieve an unconditional ceasefire, followed by the establishment of a real and lasting peace,” he added.
The Ukrainian president added that the 30-hour Easter truce, which both Kyiv and Moscow accuse the other of violating, showed that Russia “are prolonging the war”.
It comes as Mr Putin proposed bilateral talks with Ukraine on a longer ceasefire, which would mark the first time Russia held such talks since a failed peace deal soon after the invasion in 2022.
Speaking to a state TV reporter, the Russian president said: “We always have a positive attitude towards a truce, which is why we came up with such an initiative (the Easter truce), especially since we are talking about the bright Easter days.”
When asked about Mr Zelenskyy’s calls to extend the 30-hour ceasefire into a 30-day pause on civilian targets, he added: “This is all a subject for careful study, perhaps even bilaterally. We do not rule this out.”
The Ukrainian president said on Sunday evening that the Russian army had “violated Putin’s ceasefire more than 2,000 times” during the day, and accused Russia of “failing” to “uphold its own promise of a ceasefire”.
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From Saturday: Why Putin offered an Easter truce?
It also comes after Donald Trump has said he hopes Russia and Ukraine “will make a deal this week,” after he and his secretary of state Marco Rubio warned that the US will walk away from efforts to broker a peace deal unless there are clear signs of progress soon.
The US president said on his Truth Social platform that both countries would “start to do big business” with the US after ending the war.
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Last month, Ukraine accepted Mr Trump’s proposal for a 30-day truce, but Mr Putin refused to back a full 30-day ceasefire, saying crucial issues of verification had not been sorted out.
He then said he would agree not to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. However, both sides have accused each other of breaking the moratorium on attacks on energy targets and at sea.
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