Aspen: Multilateral Institutions and International Collaboration: Back when I was in the Clinton administration, I remember pressing the Treasury International people on how better funding and more substantive independence for multilateral institutions ought to be a much higher priority—and their response was: "We want to keep them on their leashes so we can run the show. We are the US. We are the boss".
And then, lo and behold, Bob Dole unleashes Al D'Amato to make trouble about the Mexican financial crisis and the fallout from that leaves the US hobbled when 1997-8 comes around, and there was a general current of: "yeah, it would have been better if a much more well-funded and truly independent IMF had been able to handle both on its own."
US politics now are obviously so fraught and dysfunctional that it seems to me we should be ceding power over multilateral institutions as fast as possible, while also beefing up their financial resources. What roads are available to accomplish that?...
