Global Economic Leaders Confront a New Era of Industrial Policy

Eighty years after the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were created to stabilize the global economy in the wake of World War II, the role of those organizations and the guiding principles behind their creation has largely fallen out of fashion. The I.M.F. and World Bank were designed to embrace a new system of economic order and international cooperation, one that would stitch the world economy together and allow rich nations to help poorer ones through trade and investment. But today, those who espouse such "neoliberal" notions of open markets are increasingly lonely voices. They could soon become even more isolated if former President Donald J. Trump is re-elected. Mr. Trump is promising to upend the rules of international commerce by ratcheting up the kind of trade wars and protectionist policies that characterized his first term.