JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon was heading home after another whirlwind trip to Davos, when the news hit: President Donald Trump was suing him and his bank for $5 billion.It’s not just the latest attempt by Trump to go after companies that he claims have personally wronged him – it’s another twist in his long, complex and sometimes combative relationship with the head of the biggest US bank. JPMorgan’s shareholders were unfazed: The stock slipped slightly before ending the day higher, adding more than $4 billion to its market value. The board then announced it gave Dimon a 10% raise.
In this round, Trump accused Dimon of personally locking him out of the US financial industry after he left the White House in 2021. Or as his lawsuit put it: The CEO and his “woke” Wall Street firm illegally “debanked” Trump’s businesses because of his politics, then slapped Trump’s name in an industry “blacklist” that blocked him from accessing other lenders, too.”You’re not allowed to do what they did – Jamie Dimon, what he did, he’s not allowed to do that,” Trump later told reporters aboard Air Force One. “I don’t know what their excuse would be. Maybe their excuse would be the regulators.”Indeed, JPMorgan said it follows federal rules that push it to “close accounts because they create legal or regulatory risk for the company.” The firm, which like other banks pulled back from Trump in the weeks after his supporters attacked the US Capitol, expressed support for his administration’s recent efforts to hone those laws and prevent any potential “weaponization of the banking sector.”
The new lawsuit adds to the president’s recent break with Wall Street.After his deregulatory and tax policies handed US banks one of their most lucrative years ever, Trump launched a barrage of attacks on financial firms this month – demanding, among other things, that they slash credit-card interest rates to levels that would crush profits.In Dimon’s case, Trump is targeting the industry’s elder statesman, who has often brokered peace between Wall Street and the White House.
Squeezing CompaniesThe lawsuit was brought by Alejandro “Alex” Brito, the lawyer who helped Trump sue the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and, last month, British Broadcasting Corp., seeking a combined $35 billion for alleged defamation. The companies deny wrongdoing and are fighting the litigation.Trump has publicly complained that Capital One Financial Corp. and Bank of America Corp. also improperly rejected his business over the years. He has yet to succeed in making them pay.
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