JPMorgan Chase touts $1.5 trillion boost to US critical industries

New York: JPMorgan Chase announced Monday a $1.5 trillion initiative to promote US "critical industries," such as rare minerals, shipbuilding and nuclear energy.

The bank plans direct equity and venture capital investments of up to $10 billion in select companies, and will facilitate funding for ventures "critical to national economic security and resiliency," JPMorgan said on its website.

JPMorgan Chase is the biggest US bank by assets, controlling some $3.8 trillion in assets and a go-to financial behemoth for multinational corporations and other major institutions.

CEO Jamie Dimon described the initiative as a matter of "national security."

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he pointed to recent conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere as evidence that "should dispel any illusion that the world is safe."

"The US has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing -- all of which are essential for our national security," Dimon wrote. 

"Our adversaries and potential adversaries aren't waiting -- we no longer have the luxury of time."

Dimon said the initiative would stretch across investment and commercial banking and involve policy work to improve research and development, permitting and regulations.

The plan identifies priority areas including "defense and aerospace" and "energy independence and resilience." There are also 27 "sub-areas" that include AI, where US companies lead the world, and other fields where the United States lags far behind, such as shipbuilding.

Vulnerabilities in supply chain resilience emerged during the Covid pandemic, when a shortage of semiconductors in particular wreaked havoc on automaking and other industries.

Congress subsequently passed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act authorizing $280 billion in funding to promote the domestic industry. The legislation was signed into law by then president Joe Biden in 2022.

President Donald Trump has intensified the focus on critical materials, a source of persistent tension with China, which dominates their supply. The world’s two leading economies are also rivals in development of artificial intelligence.

The Trump administration is increasingly opting to take government stakes in private companies such as Intel and MP Materials, an approach that breaks with US free-market norms.