Trump aims to loosen banking constraints

Global Business

Trump aims to loosen banking constraints

U.S. President Donald Trump is planning to unwind a reform aimed at cleaning up global finance in the wake of the 2008 financial disaster.

He thinks it’ll help businesses and consumers get credit, but critics fear it’ll set the scene for history repeating itself.

CGTN’s Washington correspondent Owen Fairclough has more.

U.S. President Donald Trump is making good on a promise to let Wall Street off the leash with his latest executive order.

“Today we’re assigning core principles for regulating the U.S. financial system. It doesn’t get much bigger than that, right, ” said President Trump.

Trump wants to scrap the Dodd-Frank Act.

It aims to prevent the excessive risk-taking that led to the collapse of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers and the domino effect that almost leveled the global economy in 2008.

Passed amid public outrage over Wall Street practices, Dodd-Frank stops banks from effectively betting with its customers’ money. It also requires bigger financial cushions so they have enough to cover losses. But critics claim it’s too restrictive.

“We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine that have nice businesses, they can’t borrow money. They just can’t get any money, because the banks just won’t let them borrow-because of the rules and regulations,” Trump said.

The review of Dodd-Frank is part of a wider plan to unravel Obama-era regulations.

It includes overturning a law that requires retirement plan professionals to put their clients’ interests first-ahead of their own profits.

For the moment, Trump’s intention to scale back Wall Street reform remains just that. Only Congress can change the Dodd-Frank law.

But Trump can influence the choice of who runs the federal agencies responsible for keeping Wall Street in check to help implement his vision.


Steve Pruitt discusses outcomes of Trump’s economic policies

For more on the Trump administration policies and objectives, CGTN’s Susan Roberts talked with Steve Pruitt. He’s Managing Partner of the Watts Partners consulting group and he is also former Staff Director of the Committee on the Budget of the United States House of Representatives.