US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged the World Bank to end its prohibition on financing upstream oil and gas projects. In a statement to the World Bank Development Committee and the IMF's International Monetary and Financial Committee, he also called for procurement reform and sharper IMF scrutiny of global imbalances. Reuters reported the statement on 15 October during the institutions' annual meetings in Bangkok.
The statement set out the United States' position rather than a policy decision by either institution. Bessent said the World Bank should focus more narrowly on poverty reduction and growth, while the IMF should concentrate on surveillance, lending and debt sustainability. He presented energy access, country graduation and competition in procurement as priorities for the two bodies' governing discussions.
ENERGY AND MINERALS POLICY
Bessent called for the World Bank to adopt a technology-neutral approach to energy and formally retire its restriction on upstream oil and gas financing. The Treasury also announced an initial contribution to a World Bank-administered nuclear-energy assistance trust fund, without disclosing an amount. It said the fund would help countries prepare for possible nuclear-power investment.
The statement also backed a larger World Bank role in critical-minerals development, including enabling infrastructure, local processing, project finance and de-risking. Bessent said that role could extend to knowledge and guidance for deep-sea mining. On procurement, he argued that Bank rules should place greater weight on competition, quality and value for money.
IMF AND DEVELOPMENT FINANCE DEMANDS
Bessent urged the IMF to strengthen its analysis of non-market policies, exchange rates and the forces behind external imbalances. He also called for more advanced World Bank borrowers to graduate from sovereign lending and cited planned phase-outs for China and Poland. The statement separately pressed the International Finance Corporation to direct more new commitments towards the poorest and most fragile countries.
The proposals could influence negotiations because they were submitted to the institutions' principal ministerial committees, but they do not themselves change World Bank or IMF policy. The next milestones are any committee communiques, responses from the institutions and formal board decisions on energy, procurement or lending eligibility. Until then, the measures should be described as United States demands rather than agreed multilateral reforms.