From its very beginnings, Citi was built on the violence and extraction of capitalist imperialism. Moses Taylor, director then president of Citi (then known as City Bank of New York) from 1837 to 1882, relied on the bank to manage his business dealings with sugar plantations in Cuba that utilized the enslaved labor of over 180,000 Africans. During a period of economic downturn in 1837, Taylor used his fortune, built on the backs of enslaved laborers, to secure financial assets for the bank, without which City Bank may have ceased to exist.   

The pattern continued in the 1910s, when Citi (then known as National City Bank) amassed total ownership of the punishing debt that France had imposed on Haiti as the price for its independence. At the urging of City Bank executives, the U.S. military launched a brutal occupation of Haiti in 1915, literally looting its gold reserves, and setting the stage for City Bank to take political and financial control over Haiti for the next several decades. It profited while the people and infrastructure of Haiti suffered. Citi has never even acknowledged its role in Haiti’s neocolonization, let alone taken any steps to repay Haiti for the century of forced wealth extraction.

Throughout its history, Citi has never hesitated to make a profit at others’ expense. In the 1960s and 70s, Citi made loans to the South African Apartheid government amidst the Sharpeville and Soweto massacres, citing “moral reasons” for staying in the country. It was the very last U.S. bank to end operations in South Africa in 1987. 

Not even a decade later, in 1996, Citi became the first foreign bank to establish operations in isr*el, legitimizing the settler state on the international stage. Its financial relationship with isr*el has only grown stronger in the decades since, including major investments in the tech sector and illegal settlements. Since October 2023, Citi has underwritten $2.89 billion in bonds to the State of isr*el, and billions more to weapons manufacturers, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Honeywell. At its May 2025 annual shareholder meeting, Citi proclaimed with respect to isr*el, “We are the only American bank in the country. This continues to be a tremendous source of pride for our firm.”

 Citi is a pillar of the fossil-fueled imperialist world system, financing ecological destruction and climate catastrophe from the Gulf South to the Global South. 

Citi has poured a shocking $160.7 billion into the fossil fuel industry since 2021, ranking as the world’s 2nd-largest financier of fossil fuels. Moreover, Citi is also the world’s 2nd-largest financier of fossil fuel expansion since 2021, demonstrating its commitment to profiting from fossil fuel extraction for as long as possible, and rendering false its claims of supporting the energy transition.  

Citi’s self-reported Energy Supply Finance Ratio, measuring the ratio of banks’ financing for sustainable power supply: fossil fuels, is an abysmal 0.41:1 – far short of the International Energy Agency’s recommended 6:1. Worse still, when removing the financing for false solutions like carbon capture and biomass, Citi’s ratio for actual sustainable power alternatives to fossil fuels is a mere 0.27:1. 

These are not merely abstract statistics, but reflect the scale of harm caused by Citi’s financing. In Texas and Louisiana, Citi is behind the construction of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) infrastructure in Cameron, Corpus Christi, Port Arthur, and Sabine Pass, in low-income communities of color that are already overburdened by environmental racism. Citi’s money translates into premature deaths, asthma and other health conditions, and lost school and work days in the frontline communities surrounding fossil fuel infrastructure buildout. 

From Turtle Island to Palestine to Amazonia, Citi bankrolls fossil fuel imperialism. Here in the so-called U.S., Citi is financing Enbridge’s plans to build the Rio Bravo Pipeline through the lands of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of South Texas without their consent. Citi is the 3rd-largest financier of fossil fuel expansion in Latin America and the Caribbean – violating Indigenous sovereignty, destroying irreplaceable ecosystems, and contributing to the deaths, displacement, and destruction of heightened climate disasters in the region.

Stop the Harm

Immediately and publicly end all financial services for:

1. all corporations and projects engaged in expanding the extraction, production, transportation, or combustion of fossil fuels. 

2. all corporations with licenses for oil and gas exploration off the Gaza coast. 

3. the Apartheid israeli government, israeli Occupation Forces, and all corporations and projects that contract with those entities. 

4. all clients and projects that violate the rights of Indigenous Peoples, including the Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), and/or that demonstrates a pattern of violating human rights and self-determination, especially for Indigenous, Black, low-income and communities of color.

Subsequently:

1. Commit to a rapid phase-out of financial services for all fossil fuel corporations on an explicit timeline aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5 °C. 

   • As part of this phase-out plan, a subsequent and permanent  “No New Fossil Fuel” policy that prohibits any future financial services for fossil fuel corporations is adopted.

2. Commit to a rapid phase-out of financial services for all arms and weapons manufacturers on the SIPRI Top 100 list. 

   • As part of this phase-out plan, a subsequent and permanent “No New Weapons” policy that prohibits any future financial services for arms and weapons manufacturers is adopted.

Repair the Harm and Invest in the Good

1. Contribute to independent funds for reparations to Haiti and Palestine for the institution’s role in financing the destructive, militarized colonization and historic and contemporary oppression of Haitian and Palestinian peoples. 

2. Contribute to independent funds for climate resilience infrastructure and climate disaster relief that is democratically controlled by the communities and Indigenous peoples in the areas and bio-regions most heavily impacted by the institution’s fossil fuel financing, including but not limited to: 

   • The U.S. Gulf South

   • Amazonia

3. Scale up financial services for democratically controlled renewable energy projects, climate resilience infrastructure, and proven climate solutions in line with a just transition and the needs outlined by the International Energy Agency. 

   • Maintain a minimum 4:1 financing ratio of clean energy to fossil fuels, calculated using the institution’s historical fossil fuel financing since 2016.