The joint appearance is an attempt to fight back against what the institutions fear is a slide towards greater protectionism since Mr Trump became US president.
The robust defence of multilateralism comes a little over a week before finance ministers and central bankers from around the world gather in Washington for the first biennial meetings of the IMF and World Bank since Mr Trump’s election last November.
The US is the biggest shareholder of both institutions and the meetings are set to be dominated by questions about Mr Trump’s plans for them. The Geneva-based WTO, in which the US has traditionally been a leading player, is due to hold its own biennial meeting of ministers in Argentina later this year with discussions about just what will be on the agenda held up by questions over Washington’s role.
While avoiding mentioning the US or Mr Trump by name, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and WTO director-general Roberto Azevêdo have become increasingly vocal in defending what they and many economists see as the widespread benefits of trade.
The defence of trade comes alongside calls from the three institutions for governments to do more to help those left behind by a wave of technological change and automation and the impact of international competition from globalisation.
The rise of Mr Trump and last year’s vote in the UK to leave the EU have also prompted a focus on how to do more to help those left behind by economic change, with many of those people voting for either Mr Trump or Brexit.
In the joint report prepared by the IMF, WTO and World Bank for a recent G20 meeting, the three institutions call for governments to deploy everything from education and housing programmes to better unemployment insurance to help people displaced by economic change.
They also tout the benefits of trade — which from 1960 to the eve of the global financial crisis in 2007 grew at an average real rate of about 6 per cent a year before slowing down markedly — and the WTO and a multilateral system that has helped prevent trade wars.
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Making trade an engine of growth for all: The case for trade and for policies to facilitate adjustment
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