MAGA Goes Global as IMF Picks a Trump Official for Its No. 2

Treasury Chief of Staff Dan Katz has managed U.S. negotiations with China on behalf of Secretary Scott Bessent. (U.S. Department Of Treasury)

Key Points

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• The IMF is expected to hire Dan Katz, Treasury Secretary Bessent’s chief of staff, as its first deputy managing director.
• Katz has been Bessent’s point person on China and managed tariff negotiations, including talks about TikTok.
• Katz’s selection extends Trump’s agenda into the global financial system, along with Stephen Miran’s Fed confirmation.

The International Monetary Fund has selected an official from the U.S. Treasury Department to be the fund’s No. 2 official, extending President Donald Trump’s agenda into a sensitive global institution.

The fund will hire Dan Katz, chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as its first deputy managing director, people familiar with the decision said. The position is lower profile than the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, but has significant power within the organization, which lends to and advises to governments around the world on macroeconomic policy.

Georgieva, a citizen of Bulgaria, has been in the IMF’s top job since 2019. A European holds that position by tradition. She has said tariffs risk harming global growth.

“The responsibility for appointing deputy managing directors lies with the managing director. We will make an announcement once the process has concluded,” an IMF spokesman said.

The fund’s former No. 2, Gita Gopinath, an Indian-American economist, departed for Harvard last month.

A Treasury spokesman declined to comment. The New York Post reported the decision Wednesday morning.

Katz has made few public appearances since joining the Treasury earlier this year, but has worked with Bessent since his pre-Trump days as a hedge fund manager. He contributed commentary to Barron’s during the Biden administration.

The IMF has to manage its relationships with the world’s two biggest economies, the U.S. and China. In commentary before joining the Trump administration, Katz and a colleague wrote that the IMF and its partner institution, the World Bank, should stop lending to China and use funds to aid needier countries.

Since then, Katz has become Bessent’s point person on China, the people said. He has managed the Trump administration’s ongoing tariff negotiations with China, including talks in Madrid earlier this week that led to a breakthrough on the status of social media app TikTok.

Bessent has been critical of the IMF. At the fund’s spring meeting in April, he accused it of “mission creep.” The IMF, Bessent said “devotes disproportionate time and resources to work on climate change, gender, and social issues.”

Katz’s selection by the IMF suggests it is open to acting on those criticisms, or at least attempting to insulate itself from them.

Along with Stephen Miran’s confirmation to the Federal Reserve Board this week, Katz’s move marks a significant extension of Trump’s MAGA movement into otherwise independent parts of the global financial system.

But while the Fed cannot choose its own governors and couldn’t have vetoed Miran’s appointment, the IMF has a choice in filling the No. 2 slot. That position traditionally goes to an American, but it is ultimately the choice of the IMF managing director who fills it.

Corrections & amplifications: Kristalina Georgieva is a national of Bulgaria. An earlier version of this article incorrectly described her as Georgian.

Write to Matt Peterson at matt.peterson@dowjones.com