Under the Articles of Agreement, the Fund is charged with promoting international monetary co-operation by providing the machinery for consultation and collaboration on international monetary problems, and is tasked with facilitating the expansion and balanced growth of international trade. In short, the Fund was designed to be an institution where national authorities could work out the "rules of the game" for the international economy.
Thanks in part to this U.S. leadership, the world thus had an institution dedicated to promoting a market-based international financial order and to avoiding the protectionist, "beggar-thy-neighbour" policies that so hobbled the world economy in the 1930s. Delegates at Bretton Woods were ultimately able to see how their own country's interest was clearly wrapped up in a collective interest.