International Money: Christine Lagarde

Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
Following Trump’s election all three Washington-based international financial institutions are having to adjust to less support from their biggest shareholder, the U.S. government. Lagarde, a former French finance minister with a high profile in the global financial world, is in her second four-year term at the head of the IMF.

She was at the forefront of easing the debt crisis in the European Union, in particular the big bail- out of Greece. But Trump’s protectionist policies, which are now beginning to take specific shape run counter to all that the IMF, a lender of first response stands for, so a meeting of the minds is hardly likely.