In the first half of 2025, Bangladesh’s economic narrative has oscillated between optimism and anxiety. On the surface, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, new engagements with the World Bank, persistent calls for foreign direct investment (FDI), and soaring remittance inflows may appear promising. Yet, beneath these headline-friendly events lies a far deeper and more insidious reality: Bangladesh’s economic policies are being increasingly dictated not by domestic democratic imperatives, but by a global economic order designed to entrench dependence and undermine sovereignty.

At the heart of this global architecture are the Bretton Woods institutions—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank—originally created to stabilize the post–Second World War economy. Later joined by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, these institutions form what many now call the “Unholy Trinity” of global financial governance. Operating in close coordination with powerful entities such as the G7, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and transnational corporations (TNCs), and aided by complicit local elites, they form a broader apparatus—the Unholy Trinity Plus—that sustains a neo-colonial economic regime.

This system, while couched in the language of reform, development, and global integration, perpetuates a cycle of indebtedness, compliance, and compromised autonomy in countries like Bangladesh. For all its celebrated economic resilience and achievements in poverty reduction and export growth, Bangladesh remains ensnared within an externally-imposed development script—its policymaking shackled to the expectations of creditors, donors, and foreign investors.

In June 2025, the IMF disbursed an additional SDR 567 million (approximately USD 884 million) under its Extended Credit and Fund Facilities, along with USD 453 million through the Rapid Financing Instrument—bringing total IMF assistance to USD 4.1 billion. But this sum is still dwarfed by the USD 30 billion........

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