After a sunny beginning, IMF drops promise to fight trade protectionism, warns ongeopolitical risks: The gathering opened with bright optimism from the often-dour Christine Lagarde, with the Financial Times noting the IMF boss saying as the meetings opened, “Spring is in the air and spring is in the economy as well.” The FT quoted two former IMF chief economists as saying that a strengthening global economic recovery is “very real,” but clouds persist: There’s “very good reasons to be optimistic about the [global] economy over the next 18 months,” but downside risk, too, from what some see as the Trump administration’s lack of interest in leading the global financial system.

By yesterday afternoon, we had come full circle in a sense: “International Monetary Fundmembers on Saturday dropped a pledge to fight protectionism amid a split over trade policy and turned their attention to another looming threat to global economic integration: the first round of France’s presidential election,” Reuters reports, quoting Lagarde as saying, “There was a clear recognition in the room that we have probably moved from high financial and economic risks to more geopolitical risks.”

The final communique of the IMF also promised that members would not engage in“competitive devaluations and will not target our exchange rates for competitive purposes.”