Wealthy nations must do more through IMF relief | READER COMMENTARY

In the article, “G7 leaders tackle migration, AI and economic security on second and final day of summit in Italy” (June 14), the executive director of humanitarian group The ONE Campaign points out that wealthy countries have failed to live up to their promises to developing nations: “Without any concrete action, the G7 in Italy amounts to no more than pointless platitudes.”

He couldn’t be more right. Soaring food and energy prices, catastrophic climate disasters, unbearable debt burdens worsened by the Federal Reserve’s high interest rates — poorer countries need our help to survive the tumultuous global economy.

President Joe Biden has a powerful tool at his disposal that costs taxpayers nothing.

In times of need, the International Monetary Fund can issue a financial resource called “Special Drawing Rights” (SDRs) to its members. SDRs can be exchanged for hard currency to purchase goods like food and medicine, used to repay debt or held for a rainy day. They don’t have to be paid back.

In 2021, the IMF issued $650 billion in SDRs. It was a lifeline to developing countries during the pandemic. But today, it’s clear that they need more.

Humanitarian groups like Oxfam, ActionAid, and The ONE Campaign, United Nations officials, members of Congress, African leaders, the International Chamber of Commerce — all of these support a new SDR issuance. So does the AFL-CIO as a good global economy is good for U.S. workers.

The U.S. is extremely influential at the IMF and if President Biden supported a new SDR allocation, it would surely happen. But Republicans in Congress are spreading misinformation that SDRs help U.S. adversaries (they don’t) to try to scare Biden.

As chair of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin should be pushing back on these bad-faith efforts and encouraging Biden to do what the G7 has failed to do: help our brothers and sisters in the developing world with a new issuance of SDRs.

— Mark Harrison, Mitchellville

The writer is a former director of the United Methodist Church’s Peace with Justice Program.

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