President Trump of the United States began his administration by asking the US Treasury to report to him with some recommendations to cut regulation; the first report has now appeared.

Executive Order 13772 promulgated Trump's "core principles of financial regulation." These are:

• empower Americans to make independent financial decisions and informed choices in the marketplace, save for retirement, and build individual wealth;
• prevent taxpayer-funded bailouts;
• more rigorous regulatory impact analysis that addresses systemic risk and market failures;
• enable American companies to be competitive with foreign firms in domestic and foreign markets;
• advance American interests in international financial regulatory negotiations and meetings;
• make regulation efficient, effective and 'tailored'; and
• restore public accountability within federal financial regulatory agencies while rationalising them.

Section 2 of the order states that the Secretary of the Treasury has to report to the President within 120 days of the date of the order (3rd February, and periodically thereafter) on the extent to which existing laws, treaties, regulations, guidance, reporting and recordkeeping requirements, and other Government policies promote the principles. That report, and all subsequent reports, shall identify any laws, treaties, regulations, guidance, reporting and recordkeeping requirements, and other Government policies that inhibit Trump's objectives.

In response, the Treasury recommends a significant restructuring of the authority and execution of regulatory responsibilities by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the government agency set up by the Dodd-Frank Act to protect consumers from sharp practice, their own ignorance of the market and other things.

The CFPB, according to the Treasury, was created to pursue an important mission, but its unaccountable structure and unduly broad regulatory powers have led to predictable regulatory abuses and excesses. The Treasury believes that the CFPB’s approach to rulemaking and enforcement has hampered consumers' access to credit, limited innovation and imposed unduly high compliance burdens, particularly on small institutions. The Treasury wants to make the director of the CFPB removable at will by the President or, alternatively, restructure the CFPB as an independent multi-member commission or board. It also wants the Government to fund the CFPB through the annual appropriations process; do something to ensure that regulated entities have adequate notice of CFPB interpretations of law before subjecting them to enforcement actions; and "curb abuses" in investigations and enforcement actions.