Ivanka Trump 'declined father's suggestion' of World Bank job

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AFP

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Ivanka Trump is on a tour of Ivory Coast, where she visited a cocoa farm near Adzope

Ivanka Trump has confirmed she turned down the job of World Bank head when her father asked if she was interested.

Last week, President Donald Trump told The Atlantic he had asked her if she wanted the bank’s most senior role “because she’s very good with numbers”.

She has now said that when asked, she told him she was “happy with the work” she’s doing as White House adviser.

Ms Trump was eventually involved in selecting the new World Bank president, US economist David Malpass.

The US has a longstanding, if informal, right to select the World Bank’s leader.

Speaking to the Associated Press news agency during a trip to Ivory Coast, Ms Trump said her father brought the job up with her as “a question”, but she refused the offer.

She added that Mr Malpass would do an “incredible job”.

Asked if the president had offered her any other prominent jobs, she said that she would “keep that between” the two of them.

In his interview last week, Mr Trump said he had thought of his daughter for a number of different roles – including US ambassador to the United Nations, because he believes she is “a natural diplomat”.

But he was warned off nominating her for the role, he said, because “they’d say nepotism, when it would’ve had nothing to do with nepotism”.

Ms Trump is currently on a tour of African countries to promote the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP), a US government initiative to advance women’s participation in the workplace.

She attended the first Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) in Abidjan on Wednesday, and earlier visited a cocoa farm near Adzope. She has also visited a women-run textile factory in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

The launch of the initiative in February has coincided with President Trump’s proposed cuts to foreign aid, and a ban on US aid to health groups that promote or provide abortions.

source: bbc.com