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Trump’s backlash isn’t ‘game over’ for ESG investing

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A mobile billboard rolls past the U.S. Capitol on May 10, 2023.

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Investors have pulled money from so-called ESG funds in recent years, amid political backlash, high interest rates and other headwinds.

But analysts say the outlook and long-term investment thesis for the fund category, which stands for “environmental, social and governance,” are favorable.

President Donald Trump’s agenda “isn’t ‘game over’ for ESG investing,” Diana Iovanel, a senior markets economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note on Tuesday.

Demand for ESG investments “is here to stay” even in the face of political pressure, Iovanel wrote.

ESG outflows amid ‘anti-ESG backlash’

How is an ESG fund really built?

“I don’t think we really expected something different, because of the anti-ESG backlash in the U.S. and the political environment there,” said Hortense Bioy, head of sustainable investing research at Morningstar.

Critics call ESG a form of “woke capitalism” that sacrifices returns for the sake of liberal goals.

Advocates argue that ESG investing positions investors for higher long-term returns because companies that adopt such practices are poised to be more resilient, and therefore more successful, than peers.

Outflows follow years of steady growth

Two years of consecutive outflows — in 2023 and 2024 — followed years of steady ESG growth.

Investors have funneled a total $130 billion into U.S. ESG funds over the past decade, according to Morningstar. For example, investors pumped more than $50 billion into ESG funds in 2020 and almost $70 billion in 2021, a record high, according to Morningstar.

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Despite outflows, overall ESG fund assets grew slightly in 2024, to $344 billion, due to market appreciation, Morningstar found.

Investor demand also appears relatively high, especially among younger investors, analysts said.

About 84% of individual investors in the U.S. are interested in sustainable investing, according to a 2024 Morgan Stanley survey. Roughly two thirds, 65%, of respondents said their interest had increased in the prior two years.

Politics poses headwinds for ESG

But the political backlash against initiatives underlying ESG funds has intensified “very quickly” since President Trump was elected, Bioy said.

Within the first few days of his inauguration, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris agreement, blocked subsidies for electric vehicles, pushed for more fossil-fuel production and started a “huge pushback” against diversity, equity and inclusion policies, Iovanel of Capital Economics wrote.

The Republican-led Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday said it would stop defending a climate-change disclosure rule in court. The regulation required a baseline transparency around climate risks and greenhouse gas emissions from certain U.S. publicly listed companies.

There’s also uncertainty about the fate of the Inflation Reduction Act, a historic climate change mitigation law signed by President Joe Biden.

Even before President Trump’s second term, at least 18 Republican-led states had adopted “anti-ESG legislation,” prompting some large asset managers to “pare back” their ESG efforts, Iovanel wrote.

The number of ESG funds contracted for the first time ever in 2024 — to 587 from 646 in 2023, a 9% decline, according to Morningstar. That means asset managers made fewer options available for investors.

“It’s very tricky for any asset manager now to be selling ESG products,” Bioy said. “They don’t want to draw attention.”

Non-political headwinds

ESG funds have suffered from non-political headwinds, too, analysts said.

In fact, high interest rates have likely been more of a hindrance than politics, analysts said. High borrowing costs negatively impact sectors like clean energy more than others because they’re more capital-intensive, analysts said.

Performance has also lagged in recent years. For example, less than half — 42% — of sustainable funds ranked in the top half of their respective investment categories, according to a Morningstar analysis of investment returns.

It’s very tricky for any asset manager now to be selling ESG products. They don’t want to draw attention.

Hortense Bioy

head of sustainable investing research at Morningstar

Underperformance in recent years is partly due to high interest rates, analysts said.

Additionally, oil and gas prices boomed after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The top 10 stocks in the S&P 500 that year were from the energy sector, for example. ESG portfolios that minimize fossil-fuel exposure looked like relative laggards as a result, analysts said.

However, performance was “very good” prior to 2022, Bioy said.

For example, the typical U.S. ESG stock fund beat returns of its peers by about 4 percentage points in 2020, according to a Morgan Stanley analysis. ESG bond funds outperformed by about 1 point that year, it found.

“Any investment and any ESG investment are no different — they go through lows and highs,” Bioy said.

ESG is investing, ‘not philanthropy’

But it’s the long term, not the short term, where ESG investing is poised for clear outperformance, analysts say.

McKinsey research found that companies with C-suite leaders “who chase growth without considering how their strategies could impact people, the planet, and their firm’s long-term sustainability” are less likely to “lead their companies to full growth potential,” the consultancy said in a 2023 analysis of the 10,000 largest global companies from 2016 to 2022.

The goal of ESG investing is to reduce a portfolio’s long-term risk, said Jennifer Coombs, the head of content and development at the U.S. Sustainable Investment Forum, known as US SIF.

Money managers who oversee ESG portfolios also don’t aim to sacrifice investment returns for the sake of pursuing an environmental or social agenda, Coombs said. Instead, they generally believe that investing according to ESG principles ultimately boosts risk-adjusted returns for long-term investors, she said.

“This is investing,” Coombs said. “It’s not philanthropy.”

“Sustainability takes a long time,” she said. “It’s long term. And that’s the whole idea.”

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House GOP tax bill calls for $30,000 ‘SALT’ deduction cap

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Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) speaks during a House Committee on Ways and Means in the Longworth House Office Building on April 30, 2024 in Washington, D.C.

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images News | Getty Images

House Republicans are calling for a higher limit on the deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT, as part of President Donald Trump‘s tax and spending package.

The House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax, released the full text of its portion of the bill on Monday afternoon. The SALT provision would raise the cap to $30,000 for those with a modified adjusted gross income of $400,000 or less.

However, the SALT deduction limit has been a sticking point in tax bill negotiations and the provision could still change significantly. The committee is scheduled to debate and vote on the legislation on Tuesday afternoon.    

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Enacted via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, of 2017, there’s a $10,000 limit on the federal deduction on state and local taxes, known as SALT, which will sunset after 2025 without action from Congress.

Currently, if you itemize tax breaks, you can’t deduct more than $10,000 in levies paid to state and local governments, including income and property taxes.

Raising the SALT cap has been a priority for certain lawmakers from high-tax states like California, New Jersey and New York. With a slim House Republican majority, those voices could impact negotiations.

While Trump enacted the $10,000 SALT cap in 2017, he reversed his position on the campaign trail last year, vowing to “get SALT back” if elected again. He has renewed calls for reform since being sworn into office.

Lawmakers have floated several updates, including a complete repeal, which seems unlikely with a tight budget and several competing priorities, experts say.

“It all has to come together in the context of the broader package,” but a higher SALT deduction limit could be possible, Garrett Watson, director of policy analysis at the Tax Foundation, told CNBC earlier this month.

Here’s who could be impacted.

How to claim the SALT deduction

When filing taxes, you choose the greater of the standard deduction or your itemized deductions, including SALT capped at $10,000, medical expenses above 7.5% of your adjusted gross income, charitable gifts and others.

Starting in 2018, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act doubled the standard deduction, and it adjusts for inflation yearly. For 2025, the standard deduction is $15,000 for single filers and $30,000 for married couples filing jointly.

Because of the high threshold, the vast majority of filers — roughly 90%, according to the latest IRS data — use the standard deduction and don’t benefit from itemized tax breaks.

Typically, itemized deductions increase with income, and higher earners tend to owe more in state income and property taxes, according to Watson.

Who benefits from a higher SALT limit

Generally, higher earners would benefit most from raising the SALT deduction limit, experts say.

For example, an earlier proposal, which would remove the “marriage penalty” in federal income taxes, involves increasing the cap on the SALT deduction for married couples filing jointly from $10,000 to $20,000.

That would offer almost all the tax break to households making more than $200,000 per year, according to a January analysis from the Tax Policy Center.

“If you raise the cap, the people who benefit the most are going to be upper-middle income,” said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

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Of course, upper-middle income looks different depending on where you live, he said.

Forty of the top 50 U.S. congressional districts impacted by the SALT limit are in California, Illinois, New Jersey or New York, a Bipartisan Policy Center analysis from before 2022 redistricting found.

If lawmakers repealed the cap completely, households making $430,000 or more would see nearly three-quarters of the benefit, according to a separate Tax Policy Center analysis from September.

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After UK, China trade deals, tariff rate still highest since 1934: Yale

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A cargo ship moors at the container terminal berth of Lianyungang Port for loading and unloading containers in Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province, China, on May 9, 2025.

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The tariff rate the U.S. puts on imports remains higher than any point since the 1930s, despite trade deals struck with China and the United Kingdom in recent days, according to a Yale Budget Lab report issued Monday.

The total U.S. average effective tariff rate is 17.8% — the highest since 1934 — even after accounting for these policy changes, according to the Yale Budget Lab.

That’s equivalent to an increase of 15.4 percentage points from the average effective tariff rate before Trump’s second term, the report said.

Current tariff policies in effect are expected to cost the average household $2,800 over the “short run,” according to the report. It doesn’t specify a time frame.

China and U.K. trade deals

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Consumers will likely alter their buying

Prior to the China and U.K. trade pacts, consumers faced an overall average effective tariff rate of 28%, the highest since 1901, the Yale Budget Lab estimated in a prior analysis on April 15.

The estimated decline from that average tariff rate “is almost entirely due to the lower rates on Chinese imports — the US-UK trade deal has minimal effects on average tariff rates,” its most recent report said.

Businesses and consumers are likely to change their purchase behavior to avoid the higher costs associated with tariffs, especially from China, according to economists.

After accounting for these substitution effects, the average effective tariff rate would be 16.4%, the highest since 1937, the Yale Budget Lab estimates.

The timing of that substitution is “highly uncertain,” it said.

“Some shifts are likely to happen quickly — within days or weeks — while others may take longer,” according to the report.

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Fidelity technical issues kept some investors out of their accounts

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A Fidelity Investments branch.

Nicholas Pfosi | The Boston Globe | Getty Images

Limited ability to trade in a big market day

The brokerage’s login issue may have been a greater problem for day traders, institutional investors and options investors, or investors who want to buy at a certain price before the market jumps, said certified financial planner Lazetta Rainey Braxton, the founder and managing principal of The Real Wealth Coterie.

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Not having access to their brokerage accounts during big market swings can hurt their strategies because they are actively managing their portfolios, said Braxton, a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council.

But for long-haul investors, a login glitch that lasts a few hours might not make a huge difference, she said.

“Most investors are not chasing the market,” Braxton said.

‘Remain calm’

Technical issues at brokerages have happened in the past. In August, customers of Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments were unable to trade in the middle of a steep market sell-off of global equities.

If a blip like this happens again, “it is important for investors to remain calm,” said Carolyn McClanahan, a certified financial planner and the founder of Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, Florida. She’s also a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council.

While it can be a grievance at the moment, such technical difficulties are temporary — “these outages usually don’t last long,” said CFP Cathy Curtis, the founder and CEO of Curtis Financial Planning in Oakland, California.

And besides, “tech outages will not affect the value of investments,” said Curtis, a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council

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