Jersey stable in face of Trump's attacks on sustainable finance

Tuesday 21 January 2025

Donald Trump's scrapping of environmental policies shouldn't have too much of an effect in Jersey, according to Jersey Finance's CEO.

Joe Moynihan explained that the local finance industry decided "a number of years ago" to focus on being a sustainable finance centre – which involved "trying to educate the industry", publishing a roadmap, and giving industry players the ability to discuss it with their clients.

An online tool, he added, allows member firms to gage their work against sustainability goals.

The next big event for the effort is the island's Sustainable Finance Summit, from 10-14 March.

Pictured: Joe Moynihan, CEO of Jersey Finance, said the island remained attractive due to its stability.

But at the same time, even before Donald Trump was inaugurated yesterday, top American banks are rolling back their green commitments.

Having campaigned inside the Republican party against "woke capitalism", Trump has already removed over 100 environmental rules and policies, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported, adding that he was expected to remove even more environmental protections in favour of fossil fuels.

The new President campaigned with a "drill, baby, drill!" slogan, collected endorsements from fossil fuel executives, and said he would focus on the US's "energy dominance".

This, the Bureau reported, had derailed any efforts to promote sustainable finance.

On taking office yesterday, Trump immediately signed an executive order directing the US to withdraw from the Paris agreement. This means the US, which has the second-largest CO2 emissions in the world, is giving up on targets to reduce global warming to 1.5°C.

But the impacts of this will mainly be felt in the US, Mr Moynihan said.

"If you look at our footprint, we have a global business. Not everybody is going to follow what President Trump decides," the Jersey Finance CEO explained.

"So I think it might have an impact, but it will be tangentially, as opposed to having a major disruption to what we have been doing, that we'll continue."

Jersey Finance was looking to focus on its "key markets" in 2025 – including the UK, the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE), Singapore, the US, South Africa and Kenya.

This geographical spread made Jersey Finance unique and had worked to its advantage, particularly where there is a staff member on the ground.

This area "is increasingly important", according to Mr Moynihan.

"It's going to, perhaps, and has been already disrupted, a little bit, by the change of presidency in the US," he noted.

"But by the same token, that's just part of the market."

Mr Moynihan added that there had been "a lot more uncertainty in the US than there would have been in the past" – but that Jersey stood out favourably in comparison.

He explained: "One of the things that Jersey as a jurisdiction promotes is stability and certainty, and if you look at the world today, those two factors are not available everywhere.

"That makes a jurisdiction such as ours much more attractive. Add to that the high-quality regulation and the expertise that's in the jurisdiction. [This] puts us in quite a good place."

He continued: "It'll play out. We'll see what pans out – but I think what I would be more concerned about is the impact of a Trump presidency on global trade, because what we do here is we act as a conduit for investments, for trading.

"So if global investment is impacted by some of the President's policies, potentially, that could have an impact on us. It works both ways."