The Wall Street Journal

Big Bank CEOs Reckon With Their Lack of Influence on Trump

Tariffs extinguish animal spirits as deals grind to a halt and recession forecasts climb

Traders at the New York Stock Exchange.
Traders at the New York Stock Exchange. Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News

Last week, bank CEOs including JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs’s David Solomon, Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan and Wells Fargo’s Charlie Scharf were in Washington for an industry meeting when the matter of communications with the White House came up.

Executives in the room took turns saying when they last spoke to President Trump. The general response: not recently. Many of them said they hadn’t had a substantive discussion with Trump since the pandemic hammered markets in 2020, according to people familiar with the meeting.

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