Quite a feud is erupting in advance of the gathering this week in Washington of the mandarins of international high finance. It pits President Trump’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, and the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde. She has been warning of protectionism by the Trump administration. He says Americans are pikers at protectionism compared to the Europeans and Asians.

“We are the least protectionist of the major areas,” Mr. Ross tells the London Financial Times in an interview published this morning. “We are far less protectionist than Europe. We are far less protectionist than Japan. We are far less protectionist than China. We also have trade deficits with all three of those places. So they talk free trade. But in fact what they practice is protectionism.” The commerce secretary calls their critique of American countermeasures “rubbish.”

In the feud between Mme. Lagarde and Secretary Ross, the Sun is on the side of Don Boudreaux. He is a George Mason University economist who has emerged as among the most articulate exponents of free trade. When we reached him this morning in Virginia, he was sputtering that Mme. Lagarde and Mr. Ross are both wrong. What’s the point of being merely less wrong than one’s adversary (or trading partner)?

What we like about Mr. Boudreaux is not only the irascibility with which he adheres to principle but also the clarity with which he grasps the way out of this mud fight — honest money. One can see glimmers of this if one reads through the Financial Times’ report of its interview with Secretary Ross. He, in essence, accuses Mme. Lagarde of clinging to the multilateral remnant of the Bretton Woods system abandoned in the 1970s.

The abandonment of Bretton Woods was kind of like a neutron bomb that extinguished the spirit of Bretton Woods — a dollar defined in law and international trade at a 35th of an ounce of gold — but left intact the edifices. They are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. What in the world is the purpose of the IMF in a world without a dollar whose value is fixed in law and is there as a neutral, non-political policy guide for international institutions?

If President Trump and Secretary Ross can keep that question clear in mind, they will be on course to win this fight in the long haul. Particularly if they bring Congress into it as an ally. The House is on the brink of passing (for the third time) Audit the Fed, which would give the Congress a look at the international operations of our central bank. Legislation is also pending for a centennial monetary commission to start rethinking our monetary system.

The IMF and the World Bank, though, are now operating against the Trump administration on our dime. That’s the real story in the FT’s interview. It’s not just that the IMF is a European-centric cabal. It’s that both the IMF and the World Bank have never really understood the distinction between government growth and private growth. After Bretton Woods their only logic is socialism. Wilbur Ross could yet become to the international financial system what Ambassador Nikki Haley has become to the United Nations.