U.S. Should Consider Withdrawing From Basel, Dimon Tells FT

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said the U.S. should consider withdrawing from the Basel group of global regulators and that new international capital rules are “anti-American,” according to the Financial Times.

“I’m very close to thinking the United States shouldn’t be in Basel anymore,” Dimon said in an interview, the newspaper reported today. “I would not have agreed to rules that are blatantly anti-American.”

Dimon, 55, who leads the most profitable U.S. lender, has criticized regulators for new global capital requirements under Basel III and U.S. rules being formulated under the Dodd-Frank Act. In June, Dimon took an unusual step in pressing Bernanke in a public forum on whether regulators have overreached in reining in the banking system and are slowing economic growth.

Dimon said that moves by the 27 member-states of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to impose an additional charge on the largest banks go too far, according to the FT. He also criticized global liquidity rules as unfair, saying that regulations view European covered bonds as highly liquid while they discount U.S.-backed mortgage securities.

“Our regulators should go there and say, ‘If it’s not in the interests of the United States, we’re not doing it,” Dimon said, according to the newspaper.

Joseph Evangelisti, a spokesman for New York-based JPMorgan, declined to comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Dawn Kopecki in New York at dkopecki@bloomberg.net;

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net