It was when Vladimir Putin chided Washington for failing to ratify reforms to the International Monetary Fund that US officials realised their country’s international standing had sunk to a new low.

At the Group of 20 summit in Brisbane last year, the Russian president — virtually a pariah after his military incursions in Ukraine — won allies around the table when he rounded on President Barack Obama for failing to secure US congressional approval for an overhaul giving emerging economies a greater voice in the fund.

The Russian leader was hardly the first to criticise. For years, many of the world’s finance ministers have asked how the US could pretend to lead global economic policymaking when an overhaul to the fund, agreed in 2010, remained gridlocked in Washington. And when could big emerging economies get the voice at the fund they deserved?