\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump announced a one-year cap that would limit credit card interest rates to 10% this week, in a move that has prompted mixed reaction from lawmakers and beyond.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s social media post on Friday night said the restriction would take effect on 20 January, but he did not provide specifics on how the government would implement it or ensure that companies comply.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease be informed that we will no longer let the American Public be \u2018ripped off\u2019 by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%, and even more, which festered unimpeded during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration,\u201d Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoincidentally, the January 20th date will coincide with the one year anniversary of the historic and very successful Trump Administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
During Trump\u2019s second campaign, he had said he would implement such a cap, as American credit card debt hit a record of more than $1.1tn. That debt later reached a whopping $1.17tn in the third quarter of 2024, growing from $770bn in the first quarter of 2021.<\/p>\n
After not seeing action on that campaign promise, senators Bernie Sanders and Josh Hawley introduced a bipartisan bill in February 2025 to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for the next five years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen large financial institutions charge over 25 percent interest on credit cards, they are not engaged in the business of making credit available. They are engaged in extortion and loan sharking. We cannot continue to allow big banks to make huge profits ripping off the American people. This legislation will provide working families struggling to pay their bills with desperately needed financial relief,\u201d the lawmakers wrote in a statement announcing the bill.<\/p>\n
With major opposition from banking groups, the bill has not progressed in Congress.<\/p>\n
Just one day before Trump\u2019s announcement, Sanders criticized Trump for not fulfilling his campaign pledge.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump promised to cap credit card interest rates at 10% and stop Wall Street from getting away with murder,\u201d Sanders wrote on X on Friday. \u201cInstead, he deregulated big banks charging up to 30% interest on credit cards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hours later, the president made the announcement, drawing pushback from billionaire hedge fund manager and Trump supporter Bill Ackman.<\/p>\n
Ackman initially posted, then deleted, a tweet that called Trump\u2019s announcement \u201ca mistake\u201d and warned that credit card lenders could cancel consumer cards if they couldn\u2019t charge rates \u201cadequate enough to cover losses and to earn an adequate return on equity\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think President @realDonaldTrump\u2019s goal of reducing credit card interest rates is a worthy and important one,\u201d Ackman later posted on X on Saturday. \u201cMy concern about capping rates at 10% is that doing so will inevitably cause millions of Americans to have their cards cancelled as credit card companies lose the ability to adequately price subprime credit risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts, also expressed skepticism about whether Trump could implement such a cap without approval from Congress.<\/p>\n
\u201cBegging credit card companies to play nice is a joke. I said a year ago if Trump was serious I\u2019d work to pass a bill to cap rates,\u201d Warren said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince then, he\u2019s done nothing but try to shut down the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau]. Trump doesn\u2019t care about affordability. Americans know a fraud when they see one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much like the response to Sanders and Hawley\u2019s bill, more opposition was espoused by the Bank Policy Institute, the American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association, the Financial Services Forum and the Independent Community Bankers of America, which issued a joint statement about the announcement: \u201cWe share the President\u2019s goal of helping Americans access more affordable credit. At the same time, evidence shows that a 10% interest rate cap would reduce credit availability and be devastating for millions of American families and small business owners who rely on and value their credit cards, the very consumers this proposal intends to help. If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives. We look forward to working with the administration to ensure Americans have access to the credit they need.\u201d<\/p>\n
In contrast, Hawley lauded the move and wrote on X: \u201cFantastic idea. Can\u2019t wait to vote for this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump announced a one-year cap that would limit credit card interest rates to 10% this week, in a move that has prompted mixed reaction from lawmakers and beyond. The president\u2019s social media post on Friday night said the restriction would take effect on 20 January, but he did not provide specifics on how the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1631,1339,1412,2575,964,519,14325,520,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-41343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-announces","9":"tag-cap","10":"tag-card","11":"tag-credit","12":"tag-donald","13":"tag-interest","14":"tag-oneyear","15":"tag-rates","16":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}