Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has acknowledged that the United States “has a point” in criticising global trade imbalances, lending support to concerns raised by the Trump administration as the UK grapples with the economic fallout of rising tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty.
Speaking at an event hosted by the Institute of International Finance in Washington, Bailey said the central bank was “working through” the potential economic implications of President Trump’s sweeping tariff measures ahead of the Bank’s next interest rate decision in May.
The governor’s comments came during a week of high-stakes meetings hosted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and marked his most conciliatory tone yet towards Trump-era grievances about global trade. Bailey said long-standing surpluses among major manufacturing exporters — particularly China — pose structural risks to the global economy.
“Scott Bessent [the US Treasury secretary] has a point,” Bailey said. “There are issues with the way the system is working which pose harder questions about how the system operates.”
He criticised China’s reliance on weak domestic demand and export-led manufacturing, arguing the model was “not sustainable forever”. Bailey, an economic historian by background, said that today’s global imbalances mirror the very problems the Bretton Woods institutions were designed to address in the aftermath of the Second World War.
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