The Domino Effect: How Trump’s Re-election Toppled a Global Banking Alliance

A single political event—the re-election of Donald Trump—has triggered a domino effect that toppled the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). The global coalition has announced its immediate shutdown after a cascade of member departures left it unable to function.
The first domino was the shift in the US political climate. Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” platform and the rise of an “anti-woke” movement created immense pressure on American banks. Membership in a climate-focused group like the NZBA became a political liability, prompting the first wave of exits.
The second domino fell when the six largest US banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, all quit the alliance. This was a monumental blow, removing a critical mass of financial power and influence from the organization and signaling to the world that the political cost of participation was too high.
This set off the next set of dominoes abroad. Seeing the alliance critically weakened and without its American core, banks in Europe and Japan began to withdraw. The final dominoes to fall were major British lenders like HSBC and Barclays, whose departures this summer sealed the NZBA’s fate.
The result of this chain reaction is a starkly divided response. Some view the collapse as a “bitterly disappointing” failure of corporate resolve in the face of political pressure. Others see it as the predictable end of a flawed, voluntary system. They argue the fallen dominoes clear a path for what they see as the only real solution: robust and mandatory government regulation of climate finance.