Right now, the International Monetary Fund is trying to move forward controversial “reforms” that would massively expand the institution’s power and the burden it imposes on taxpayers — particularly American taxpayers — by doubling IMF resources. The scheme, which is strongly supported by the Obama administration, would diminish U.S. influence in IMF decisions while boosting the voice of the communist dictatorship ruling mainland China, Putin’s Kremlin, the pro-Castro Brazilian government, and various other regimes that the UN refers to as “emerging markets.”
As it stands, however, the U.S. government has veto power because it controls more than 15 percent of the voting shares, and 85 percent approval is required to adopt the reforms. And the International Monetary Fund is facing a U.S. Congress that has refused to do its bidding — so far at least.
Intense lobbying, threats, and even an offer by IMF boss Christine Lagarde (shown) to “belly dance” for lawmakers have failed to persuade the American people’s elected representatives to go along with the plot. So, frustrated and outraged, the IMF board got together last month to discuss “two options” for moving forward with the plan without the United States, according to media reports citing primarily unnamed sources close to the discussions.
According to sources cited by Reuters and Bloomberg, the two primary proposed maneuvers include taking away Washington, D.C.’s veto power at the institution, essentially allowing the IMF to run wild at the whims of foreign governments and dictatorships, and asking the Obama administration to “temporarily” give up the U.S. government’s controlling share of IMF votes — shares acquired using the American people’s money — so that the IMF’s other members can ram through the deeply controversial reforms.
As to the first option, Putin, who has been pocketing billions of Obama-backed IMF bailout money sent to Ukraine, has been fairly open in his threats to bypass the U.S. Congress in the effort to supersize the IMF and obtain more say in its decisions. As The New American reported in March of last year, the Kremlin and its allies openly threatened that if U.S. lawmakers refused to do their bidding by approving the IMF empowerment agenda, they would start “taking more aggressive measures” to accomplish their goal. With Congress still not cooperating, those “more aggressive” schemes to push the agenda are now apparently underway.
Putin and the Kremlin are, with Obama and Beijing, still leading the charge to reduce U.S. influence and boost IMF power. One of the Moscow-backed proposals being considered to empower the IMF without U.S. approval — which is deemed “de-linking” — would split the radical reforms into two parts. Essentially, the doubling of taxpayer resources for the fund and the further empowerment of Third World regimes in IMF decisions would each stand independently rather than as one package. “In our view the de-linking would be the most logical,” Putin’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov was quoted as saying.
Siluanov, who also served in the Soviet regime’s Finance Ministry, noted that the Obama administration had asked IMF member regimes for an additional six months to lobby Congress on the “reforms” before it would seek to bypass U.S. lawmakers and act unilaterally. Apparently the U.S. Treasury is also working “intensively” to prod Congress into supporting Putin and Beijing’s sought-after IMF reforms, too. In fact, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress unsuccessfully sought to insert approval for the reforms into unrelated bills in their desperation to do what Beijing and the Kremlin are demanding. Almost incredibly, one of the reasons cited by the New York Times and others for empowering the IMF was to stand up against Putin!
As The New American reported in November, IMF chief Lagarde and her cohorts have also been lobbying Congress intensely toward the same end. “I spent a lot of time with members of Congress last year trying to show them how ridiculous it is to stand in the way of change,” Lagarde said, dismissing as “ridiculous” the concerns of Americans and their elected representatives about the drastic changes they are expected to fund at the IMF. “I will keep pushing and pushing on this — I will belly dance if I have to, to get there.” So far it does not appear that any members of Congress have taken her up on the belly dancing offer, but Lagarde shows no signs of letting up. Lagarde previously said the IMF might one day move its headquarters from D.C. to Beijing.
Of course, all of the “BRICS” — the socialist and communist-minded regimes ruling Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — have been strongly pushing for more control over a more powerful IMF in recent years. Beyond that, they have also joined Western globalists and the IMF in pushing for even more extreme expansions of the IMF’s mandate to include issuing and managing a planetary fiat currency. “We support the reform and improvement of the international monetary system, with a broad based international reserve currency system providing stability and certainty,” the five BRICS regimes said in a joint 2013 declaration, calling for Third World dictators to have a greater say in the IMF and the emerging global monetary regime. “We welcome the discussion about the role of the [IMF’s] SDR [a proto-global currency known as Special Drawing Rights] in the existing international monetary system including the composition of SDR’s basket of currencies.”
In a press release posted on its website, the IMF, using diplomatic language, made clear its frustration with not having consent from the U.S. Congress to adopt is “reforms.” The IMF’s Executive Board even pushed the Board of Governors to adopt a resolution expressing “deep regret” about the issue. “The proposed resolution also emphasizes the importance and urgency of the 2010 Reforms for the Fund’s credibility, legitimacy, and effectiveness, and reiterates the commitment to their earliest possible implementation, while urging the remaining members who have not yet accepted the Fourteenth Review quota increases and the Board Reform Amendment to do so without further delay,” the IMF said in the statement.
In simpler terms, the IMF resolution would urge Congress to immediately do what the IMF, Obama, Beijing, and Putin are demanding: approve the “reforms” and hand over billions more American tax dollars in exchange for less influence. In fact, the resolution, which was not released publicly by the IMF, also appeared to call on the executive board to work on issues covered by the reforms that Congress has refused to approve. It seems that, if Congress does not submit to the IMF-Beijing-Putin-Obama threats within six months, the IMF and its member regimes will move ahead with their schemes anyway, sparking a potentially historic showdown.
The threats by the IMF and its members to bypass the American people’s elected representatives only serve to underscore the need for the U.S. government to formally withdraw from it. From promoting higher taxes and a global currency to openly advocating that humanity be fleeced with a “one-time wealth tax” to prop up mega-banks and bloated governments, the institution is clearly out of control. At the United Nations, meanwhile, globalist forces and dictators are also working to strip the U.S. government of its veto. The best way to deal with the threats would be for Congress to de-fund all of the international outfits and permanently withdraw U.S. membership.
Photo of Christine Lagarde: AP Images
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at
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