Trade, the Economy and Regulatory Pauses Marked Week’s Blizzard of Executive Orders

The first week of Trump 2.0 started off with a bang — certainly as measured by the blizzard of executive actions that were signed by the new president.

There were some orders directed at financial services and the economy at large — and insofar as trade is concerned, well, that would impact payments indirectly and banks.

At least two things did not happen that many observers might have expected to happen. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), long under fire from Republicans, is still standing, and Rohit Chopra’s still installed as director. Elsewhere, beyond the fact that, as reported here last month, the administration was reportedly mulling the consolidation or restructuring of various agencies, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has now got a new acting head tasked with reviewing banking regulations.

As detailed Friday evening, there’s still a reported struggle in finding a replacement for Chopra. Michael Hsu still leads the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). For the CFPB, there are reportedly some Republicans who want to see a consumer watchdog lead the agency and deal with issues like debanking, and there are other Republicans want to eliminate the agency because they believe it lacks accountability. At the OCC, “the decision about who should head the agency is awaiting a Senate vote on the nomination of Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary,” PYMNTS wrote.

But for now, there’s a pause on regulations in general. As PYMNTS reported earlier in the week, all agencies — which would include the agencies focused on financial services — have been ordered to refrain from publishing new regulations (kicking off the regulatory process itself) or issuing new rules.

Most immediately, as we wrote, that pause would chill some of the rulemaking that’s been poised to refashion buy now, pay later’s competitive landscape, and some of the changes in recordkeeping underpinning bank and FinTech relationships.

The jury’s still out on tariffs — as in when and where, and across which industries they might be enacted. But Trump stated in his inaugural address that he “will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens. For this purpose, we are establishing the External Revenue Service to collect all tariffs, duties, and revenues.”

The read across is that supply chains will be reconfigured — or at least reconsidered — and payments are among the considerations of how to cement relationships between buyers and suppliers.

In another executive order, viewable here, Trump ordered “all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief,” that would include as yet undefined actions to lower the cost of housing and expand housing and “create employment opportunities for American workers, including drawing discouraged workers into the labor force.”

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