German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble argued strongly in favour of free trade at the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington DC, where World Bank President Jim Yong Kim also explicitly spoke up in favour of the One Belt, One Road initiative.

Nonetheless, as the meetings were getting underway on April 21, White House national economic council director Gary Cohn said that Washington was prepared to get tougher on trade, and that the United States doesn't want to be "taken advantage of" anymore.

Responding to questions at the opening press conference, Kim was reported by the China Daily as saying that the World Bank was working closely with the Chinese government and with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on Belt and Road projects.

“The One Belt One Road project is an extremely important one for the Chinese government and also for us,” said Kim at the spring meetings, citing China as an example of a country that has embraced free trade.

Kim will attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to be held in Beijing on May 14 and 15.

At the same press conference, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde also spoke up in favour of an open and fair trading system, and said that she was confident that multilateral cooperation on global trade would continue.

According to German media reports, German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble arrived at the meetings with a seven-page position paper containing 29 points rebutting criticism of Germany’s trade surplus with the rest of the world – which stood at US$270 billion in 2016.

After the meeting of the G20 finance ministers, Schauble sounded an optimistic note, saying that there was a broad consensus that free trade and open markets are better for promoting global economic growth.

Germany holds the G20 Presidency for 2017, and will host the leader’s summit in Hamburg on July 7 and 8.