Meetings clouded by wars, slow growth, US election

Global finance chiefs will gather in Washington this week amid intense uncertainty over wars in the Middle East and Europe, a flagging Chinese economy, and worries that a coin toss of the US presidential election could ignite new trade battles and erode multilateral cooperation.

The International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings are scheduled to draw more than 10,000 people from finance ministries, central banks and civil society groups to discuss efforts to boost patchy global growth, deal with debt distress and finance the green energy transition.

But the elephant in the meeting rooms will be the potential for a November 5 election victory by US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to upend the international economic system with massive new US tariffs and borrowing and a shift away from climate cooperation.

The IMF will update its global growth forecasts on Tuesday. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva last week flagged a lacklustre outlook, saying the world, saddled by high debts, was headed for slow medium-term growth and pointing to a "difficult future."

Still, Georgieva said she was "not super-pessimistic" about the outlook, given pockets of resilience, notably in the US and India, that are offsetting continued weakness in China and Europe.

While debt defaults among poor countries may have peaked, participants at the annual meetings are expected to discuss the growing problem of scarce liquidity that is forcing some emerging markets saddled with high debt service costs to delay development investments as overseas aid shrinks.