“We’ve been very thoughtful about the pacing of our hiring,” he said.

Citigroup’s revenue was $18.6 billion, slightly lower than the previous quarter but a bit higher than its third-quarter revenue a year ago. But its corporate lending revenue decreased by 6 percent from a year earlier.

Citigroup’s business customers have been showing “pause,” Mr. Mason said, “in terms of whether they actually want to invest in building out facilities or operations, pause in terms of whether they want to consider entering into new markets.”

That was a subtle but significant admission that the slowdown was affecting Citigroup’s business.

The bank’s chief executive, Michael Corbat, had been saying for months that its global footprint allowed it to take advantage of shifting trade routes so that the president’s tariffs did not actually hurt the bank. He offered a more troubled view on Tuesday during a call with analysts.

“It has caused a slowdown in terms of trade,” Mr. Corbat said of the trade war. “If we could start to get some clarity on some of these things, where I think businesses can have some more surety on the future, our trade business would definitely benefit from that.”

Wells Fargo reported $22 billion in revenue for the quarter, slightly more than the $21.9 billion it generated in the same three months a year ago, and said it had $50 million left over from what it had set aside for loan losses in the most recent quarter.

And the bank’s chief financial officer, John Shrewsberry, pointed to a different concern that was closer to home for his business clients. “To date, while our customers are cautious, the most common concern they identify is their ability to hire enough qualified workers,” he said on a call with analysts.

Wells Fargo, the country’s fourth-largest bank, is still operating under growth restrictions imposed by its regulators, and its per-share earnings of 92 cents were lower than analysts’ expectations because of expenses from legal woes stemming from a series of scandals that began to come to light in 2016.