Tuesday 05 February 2019 2:49 pm | Updated: Monday 03 June 2019 1:49 am

President Trump to nominate World Bank critic David Malpass to lead the institution

President Donald Trump is reportedly set to nominate an ally from the US Department of the Treasury to become president of the World Bank.

The nomination of David Malpass would see an ardent critic of the World Bank put in line to lead the lending institution.

The senior Treasury official is expected to be nominated tomorrow, according to Politico.

In a Council on Foreign Relations interview in 2017, Malpass said that multilateralism “drifts away from our values of limited government, freedom, and the rule of law” and that it “is hurting US and global growth”.

Multilateral organisations, according to Malpass, have become increasingly more “intrusive” and “entrenched”.

Malpass has also criticised the World Bank's continued lending relationship with China and argued that the Bank should “graduate” middle-income countries by transitioning them to private lending.

World Bank reforms partly pushed by Malpass last year aimed to limit the bank's lending and push resources towards poorer countries.

If chosen, Malpass would take over the position from Jim Yong Kim, who stepped down at the start of February in order to join private equity fund Global Infrastructure Partners.

Kim, who vacated the post three years early, opposed Trump's views on climate change and development resources.

While the US has historically chosen who would lead the World Bank, any nominee would still need approval from a simple majority of the Bank's 12-member executive board.

Prior to his role as Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, Malpass was an economic advisor for the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and chief economist at Bear Stearns.

Malpass has worked for the federal government before, serving in the Treasury Department under President Ronald Reagan and the State Department under President George H.W. Bush.