America’s elite are racing to open Swiss bank accounts and move hundreds of millions of dollars out of the country as they fear being targeted by Donald Trump.
Fears of potential restrictions on moving money overseas mean ultra-wealthy Democrat families are moving huge chunks of cash out of the country as an insurance policy against the Republican administration.
Robert Paul, co-head of private clients at wealth management firm London and Capital, said: “These are big chunks of money. We’ve had five cases in the last three or four weeks, and the sums have been $40m, $30m, $30m, $100m and $50m.
“I am expecting to have at least this again if not more.”
These clients are taking money out of US brokerage accounts and opening accounts in Switzerland, Jersey and Guernsey to put it on cash deposit or in trust structures abroad, Mr Paul said.
He added: “It is literally a borders thing, having some money that is not domestically located inside the US.
“There has been fear around capital controls and movement of money. Why it’s heightened in the past four weeks is because the rhetoric is chopping and changing pretty quickly.
“A lot of this is discussions around dinner parties of the ultra-wealthy. People saying I’m worried about this and maybe you should be worried about this.”
While Mr Trump has not directly discussed imposing capital controls, investors are fearful over the president’s erratic policy making.
David Lubin of Chatham House said the Trump administration could feasibly consider imposing capital controls on money entering the country as part of its agenda to weaken the dollar and attack the US trade deficit.
Judi Galst, managing director of private clients at Henley & Partners in New York, said at least a quarter of her clients are inquiring about moving money out of the US because of the new administration.
Some are looking at investment migration strategies, such as New Zealand’s investor visa scheme, but others “really just want to open bank accounts in Switzerland,” Ms Galst said.
“I hear a lot about Switzerland and Liechtenstein. I talked to somebody at one Swiss bank who told me that they’d opened 12 accounts like this for Americans in the past two weeks,” she added.
It is the latest sign that the US economy may prove to be Mr Trump’s undoing.
After he campaigned with an agenda for tax cuts and deregulation, markets had assumed Mr Trump’s second term would be pro-business. His policy agenda since taking office has taken investors by surprise after he launched a string of protectionist measures, including a 25pc tariff on all steel and aluminium imports from around the world.
