Miami's Republican mayor is urging New York City's huge financial firms to leave Wall Street and relocate to Florida.
Mayor Francis X. Suarez made an appearance on Fox News' Your World on Thursday night, boasting that he has already been 'incredibly successful' in coaxing some Big Apple businesses to open offices in the Sunshine State.
'We've just had announcements from Blackstone, from Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan,' Suarez stated.
The mayor claimed that the exodus of financial institutions from New York began with SALT - a federal tax reform law passed in 2017.
'We've had an avalanche of people coming here. It started with SALT - when you weren't able to deduct your property taxes and your city and state income taxes from your federal taxes - and it has continued with COVID.'
Back in October, Blackstone - an NYC-based private equity alternative investment management firm with assets of $34 billion - announced it was going to open an office in Miami.
Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs Group announced it was considering moving its asset management division to South Florida.
And just this week, Jamie Dimon - the CEO of JP Morgan Chase - was open to moving the $2.6 trillion company's headquarters down south to Miami.
Mayor Suarez believes a combination of factors make Miami enticing to fleeing financiers.
'We're one of the safest big cities in America and we have the second lowest tax rate in about 60 years,' he told Your World.
'Last year we had the lowest homicide rate since 1954. We've done that through good leadership. We’ve done it through having the largest police force in the history of our city,' he stated.
"We have an incredible city that’s moving and growing almost by double digits on average within three years that I’ve been mayor.'
In comparison, residents are fleeing New York City, where violent crime is on the rise.
November saw a 112.5 percent increase in Big Apple shootings in comparison to the same month last year.
Shooting in NYC have risen 95.8 percent through the first 11 months of 2020, compared with the same period last year.
Meanwhile, a number of financial institutions have already left the Big Apple.
Earlier this year, native New Yorker Paul Singer announced he was moving his $41 billion hedge fund firm from Manhattan to Miami.
He cited the coronavirus as the reason behind the move.
Carl Icahn, the founder of Icahn Enterprises, also relocated his firm from Manhattan to Sunny Isles Beach, in Miami-Dade County, in 2020.
A recent article in Forbes magazine documented the trend of businesses fleeing from New York.
The publication claims that ''a combination of high taxes, poor governance on the part of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, ever-increasing crime, capricious business and school shutdowns and a resurgence in Covid-19 cases' are to blame.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Mail.
