As the World Bank concludes its Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C., a proposal is forming that could pull the rug from under its plans. The Heritage Foundation, an influential right-wing think tank, wants the United States to withdraw from the institution if Donald Trump wins the presidential election in November, apparently seeing it as a waste of money and a suspicious “foreign entity.” (Never mind that it’s based in the U.S. capital, it’s traditionally led by a U.S. national, and the U.S. is its biggest and most influential shareholder.)
It sounds far-fetched — but then-President Trump withdrew from both the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement last time he was in power (though the former was never completed by the time he left office.) While he might need congressional approval to actually withdraw from the World Bank, he could simply stop giving it money.
That would leave a vacuum and a big question over who might fill it — eyes are, of course, on China — which might give him pause for thought. “These geopolitical issues are not lost on the adults in the room, even in a Trump administration,” Vijay Tata, former chief counsel at the World Bank, told Politico.