Donald Trump allies outline his plans for Wall Street - and give clue on future of Biden's gas car ban

Another Trump presidency would ease rules on banks, cut back on EV mandates and see a clamp down on ESG investing - that sees 401(K)s putting money into woke companies.

A second term would see the winding back of 'burdensome regulations' on Wall Street introduced in the wake of the financial crisis, according to his aides.

If the former president were elected to reenter the White House, his administration is expected to ease regulations on banks, EV mandates, and clamp down on environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing.

ESG investing weighs non-financial factors in investment decisions.  That means money going into companies helping tackle climate change or helping minority groups - but avoiding firearms manufacturers or fossil fuel companies.

Although Trump has yet to announce staff or key policies, according to areport published on Friday by Reuters, experts and his allies are preparing and pitching rewrites that would reduce the power of various regulators.

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign told Reuters that the Biden administration was responsible for a 'massive push to increase burdensome regulations, especially on our energy and auto industries.'

Since Biden took office, he has overseen the introduction of various regulations designed to catalyze the uptake of electric vehicles.

Notably, in March the Environmental Protection Agency introduced a rule that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the US need to be electric or hybrids by 2032.

In additon to that national rule, at least eight states have  gone even further. They plan to only allow zeo-emmision cars to be sold - ruling out the sale of new hybrids as well as gas vehicles. 

It is thought Trump will take a close look at rules phasing out gas cars and prioritising electric ones. 

Other sources close to Trump said he was likely to target ESG - one described as somebody 'who regularly speaks with him on economic matters' said he would be 'sure' to 'go after all of this climate change stuff.'

In the final months of his presidency, Trump pushed to ban retirement plans from considering ESG when making investments.

Then in 2022, President Biden's administration reversed restrictions imposed under Trump - and the Labor Department announced a rule ordering government agencies to assess the impact of pension investments on the climate.

Michael Faulkender, a former Trump Treasury official, told Reuters that ESG is 'too much in the eye of the beholder' and that investors should be focused on returns - plain and simple.

'It can and has been used to deviate from the fiduciary duty that money managers have to their clients,' he said.

Another legacy of Trump's presidency was the winding down of certain Obama-era rules introduced as part of the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in the wake of the financial crisis.

It imposed new liquidity requirements on financial institutions and mandated 'stress testing' on banks to ensure they could withstand economic uncertainty.

Faulkender has also objected to stress testing, arguing that if all institutions are made to pass the same tests they will all have the same vulnerabilities, which could cause problems all run into the same problem at the same time.

Another rule to come out of the Dodd-Frank Act was the Volcker Rule, which aimed to limit banks from engaging in proprietary trading - where they invest for their own gain as opposed to that of their clients. 

Critics argued the rule was complex and difficult to implement. They also claimed it created compliance problems for banks and could impact their viability to a critical degree.

After years of lobbying by investment banks like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, in 2019 regulators eased those restrictions.

Since then, Democrats - including Sen. Elizabeth Warren - have been pushing to reinstate some of those regulations. Many used the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last year as ammunition to make the case.

'These threats never should have been allowed to materialize,' Warren told the Senate in March last year. 'Now, we must prevent them from occurring again by reversing the dangerous bank deregulation of the Trump era.'

Another important issue on the cards is the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) - an agency born out of the Dodd-Frank Act 12 years ago.

The CFPB is designed to protect consumers against financial institutions and the question of its existence has been politically fraught.

Robert Bowes, a former Trump appointee to the Department of Housing and Urban Development has called for its abolition.

He told Reuters he was 'very concerned about the disastrous bank regulation and economic policies by the Biden administration.'