TOKYO/LONDON — Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group is pulling out of an international decarbonization framework for financial institutions, Nikkei has learned, as lawmakers in U.S. criticize the financial industry’s joint carbon-cutting initiative and threaten legal action to halt it in response to pressure from the administration of President Donald Trump.

While several big U.S. banks have already withdrawn the framework, SMFG is the first Japanese financier to do so. Nomura Holdings is considering doing the same.