Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made it clear that the Trump administration does not think much neither of the European Union, nor the Eurozone nor Greece. In an interview to the Wall Street Journal, Mnuchin suggested that the US wants the International Monetary Fund to stick to its hard line on Greece.
Greece’s economic crisis is principally Europe’s problem, Mnuchin said.
After Mnuchin’s statement, reporters at the IMF asked relevant questions during the weekly press briefing.
Spokesman Gerry Rice said IMF director Christine Lagarde and US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin spoke about Greece during a phone call earlier this week, but he declined to give details.
It is not clear whether Lagarde spoke with Mnuchin before the meeting or after or during her meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Wednesday. In an interview to German state ARD TV, Lagarde stunned everyone when she swifted from the IMF’s position that Greece needed a debt relief.
“Greece does not need a debt haircut but a debt restructuring,” Lagarde said.
Steven Mnuchin, who was sworn in on 13 February, spent more than a decade and a half at Wall Street bellweather Goldman Sachs, following in the footsteps of his father who reportedly spent around three decades working for the bank.
During his time there, he worked in the mortgage department, dealing with products such as collateralised debt obligations and credit default swaps, which arguably played a major part in the 2008 financial crisis.
According to Business Insider, Mr Mnuchin left Goldman Sachs in 2012 to start a hedge fund with his former roommate from Yale, before later jointly creating a hedge fund with billionaire financier George Soros.
Apparently Donald Trump has not saved America yet otherwise he would “go out there and help Greece” as his chief of staff Reince Priebus said on January 19th.
PS Goldman Sachs? I hear a bell ringing….
Mnuchin, Bannon, Cohn, Clayton: all ex GS. And then there others with ties to oil and gas companies and other big companies. The general with ties to GE. Trump’s son in law recently got a multiple million dollar loan for a real estate project. Draining the swamp?
GS was well rewarded for cooking the books of the previous Greek governments. And now they are going tough on Greece. Mind you, in the past they had no problems with advicing their clients one thing (usually the wrong thing) and taking bets against them.
That loan to Trump’s son in law was provided by Soros btw. who is accussed of funding the organization of anti-Trump protests. It is all one big joke and a game to them.
I think Lagarde also said in the interview in Germoney that Greece did no “reforms”, nothing, nothing that was dealt in 2015 aso, Schaueble’s script.
Tin Can Army
Anyway: What the US think who they are? Now will all members of IMF give their 2 pence “opinion” also? Shove this.
Euractiv (com) made a good job publishing “the bailout business in the EU”, also about advisers like PWC, KPMG and Ernst & Young who made lots of money by this, it’s the same like with the IMF’s wrong multiplier, first wrong analyses, (but) get paid and come back. euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/opinion/the-bailout-business-in-the-eu/