JPMorgan’s Dimon stands firm in face of Trump lawsuit

Bankers are emerging as unexpected heroes of the resistance. Donald Trump’s $5bn lawsuit against JPMorgan, announced on Thursday, suggests that its boss, Jamie Dimon, has got under the presidential skin by refusing to join most other leaders of corporate America in shamelessly sucking up to him.

Ostensibly, Trump is suing because JPMorgan refused to be his banker following the Capitol attack on 6 January 2021. But why sue now? JPMorgan recently declined to donate to the planned White House ballroom. Dimon said to do so might be seen as corrupt by a future Department of Justice. Then in Davos, Dimon criticised Trump’s immigration policy, saying “we should calm down a little bit on the internal anger”, and warned his proposed 10% cap on credit-card interest rates could bring “economic disaster”.

Clearly, Trump’s plan to launch a “debanking” claim had been brewing for a while. In a video address to the World Economic Forum in 2025, he told the CEOs of Bank of America and JPMorgan: “What you’re doing is wrong… many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business.” It followed similar claims by his supporter Marc Andreessen, the tech tycoon, and his friend Nigel Farage, who sued NatWest-owned Coutts in 2023 for shutting his account.

Larry Fink, who chaired this year’s meeting in Davos, and other non-banking titans of finance, from hedge funds, private equity, venture capital and money management, continue to fete the president. But Dimon is not the only top banker to speak up. Brian Moynihan, boss of Bank of America, has also criticised Trump, including over the credit-card rate-cap plan. He was pointedly not invited to a Davos reception hosted by the president for US business leaders – no $5bn lawsuit, but a rebuke nonetheless.

Central bankers also show more willingness to criticise Trump publicly, over tariffs and his attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve. European Central Bank boss Christine Lagarde walked out of a Davos meeting during US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick’s insult-laden disparagement of Europe. And the heads of government who spoke up most clearly against Trump in the Swiss Mountains this week, Mark Carney and Emmanuel Macron? Both former bankers.

Photograph by Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images