WASHINGTON — Rules designed to curb abuses by financial advisers handling retirement funds were put on hold by President Donald Trump even as he spent the campaign railing against Wall Street.
Trump blocked new U.S. Labor Department requirements that such advisers recommend retirement investments that would be best for their clients, even if they carried smaller fees and generated less profits than other funds.
In an executive order issued Friday, Trump said the rules “may significantly alter the manner in which Americans can receive financial advice, and may not be consistent with the policies of my administration.”
Booker champions financial rules
They were designed to update regulations on financial advisers that haven’t been changed since most workers received pensions rather than self-directed Individual Retirement Accounts and 401(k) retirement plans.
“This is an affront to the American people,” said U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who was part of the rules’ rollout in April 2015 with President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). “Gutting rules that protect Americans’ retirement savings from bad investment advice and hidden fees will hurt families planning for a secure future.”
Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-3rd Dist.), a former insurance company executive, applauded Trump’s move.
“This regulation puts faceless Washington bureaucrats in the middle of Americans’ personal financial planning decisions, instead of allowing families and their financial advisors to plan for the future and save for retirement,” he said.
During the campaign, Trump insisted that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, was the candidate beholden to the financial community.
Hillary will never reform Wall Street. She is owned by Wall Street!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2016
The announcement was made on the same day that Trump, who has stocked his administration with alumni of the investment bank Goldman Sachs, issued an executive designed to begin rolling back the financial regulations enacted in responses to the Wall Street abuses that led to the Great Recession.
The Republican platform exonerated the financial industry from any blame for the crash that occurred under GOP President George W. Bush and called the new banking regulations “an excuse to establish unprecedented government control over the nation’s financial markets.”
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook
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