Ivanka Trump to help choose new World Bank president

Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and senior adviser, will play a role in helping to select the next head of the World Bank, the White House said Monday.

Trump, who had been rumored to be a contender for the position herself, will not be a candidate, a Trump administration official said. But she will assist Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in choosing a successor to Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank who announced last week that he would be stepping down.

Mnuchin called Trump last week and asked her if she would be involved, an administration official said.

Jessica Ditto, a White House spokeswoman, said Trump was asked because “she’s worked closely with the World Bank’s leadership for the past two years.”

Administration officials are expected to begin the interview process for the job, which has always gone to an American, on Tuesday. The White House did not provide any names of contenders, but the official noted that one person whose name has been floated — Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador — was not a candidate.

Trump, Mnuchin and Mulvaney will make recommendations to President Donald Trump, who will nominate a candidate for the position. Member countries of the World Bank will then vote on the nominee.

Traditionally, the US president’s pick is accepted and Europe chooses the leader of the International Monetary Fund because both institutions were founded during World War II. Kim, for instance, a former Dartmouth College president and a global health expert, was selected for the post by President Barack Obama in 2012.

Ivanka Trump is seen inside the White House as having unique sway over her father, especially when it comes to personnel decisions. In a speech Monday in front of a farm convention in New Orleans, Donald Trump even conceded that it was Ivanka Trump’s constant nagging that pushed him to support a child care tax credit in the tax bill passed last year. “Dad, Dad, we have to get it passed,” Trump said, mimicking his daughter’s successful pressure campaign.

In explaining Ivanka Trump’s qualifications for participating in the selection process, the administration official cited both Trump’s close relationship with Mnuchin as well as her work with Kim.

Last year, for instance, she helped start the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, a fund administered by the World Bank and branded “We-Fi,” at the Group of 20 conference in Hamburg, Germany. The goal of the fund, which Trump is credited with envisioning, is to generate $1.6 billion in capital for female entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Trump’s involvement with the World Bank has drawn criticism in the past. Sen Benjamin Cardin, D-Md, sent a letter last year to Mnuchin raising questions about her role with the fund, given that her eponymous women’s apparel and accessories brand could stand to benefit from its work. Since then, however, Trump has shut down her clothing line.

But Richard W Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, still questioned Trump’s involvement, noting that she holds trademarks around the world, even if she has shut down her brand. He said he had similar doubts about her husband, Jared Kushner, also a senior White House adviser.

“I do not believe that Ivanka and Jared have sufficiently divested their assets that they can participate personally and substantially in economic policy — particularly international economic matters — without risk of violating financial conflict of interest laws,” he said.

c.2019 New York Times News Service