{"id":24687,"date":"2026-01-17T10:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T10:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=24687"},"modified":"2026-01-17T10:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T10:03:14","slug":"voluntary-trump-card-idea-lowers-risk-of-legislation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=24687","title":{"rendered":"Voluntary &#8216;Trump card&#8217; idea lowers risk of legislation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<ul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n<li><b>Key insight:<\/b> An idea floated by the White House saying banks will voluntarily offer &#8220;Trump cards&#8221; with a 10% interest rate limit could dull the president&#8217;s push for a bill capping all credit card interest rates at 10%. <\/li>\n<li><b>Expert quote:<\/b> &#8220;Our expectation is that it won&#8217;t necessarily require legislation because there will be really great new Trump cards presented for folks that are voluntarily provided by the banks.&#8221; \u2014 White House Council of Economic Advisers Director Kevin Hassett<\/li>\n<li><b>What&#8217;s at stake:<\/b> Experts say that while the voluntary move could lower the pressure to move a bill soon, the issue is unlikely to go away in a political moment where affordability is central to most voters&#8217; concerns.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said that the Trump administration expects banks to issue &#8220;Trump cards&#8221; with rate caps at 10%, obviating the need for Congress to pass legislation that would set all credit card rates at that level.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Processing Content<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump said on social media earlier this week that he would back legislation for a 10% credit card rate cap, and then later <ps-link><u>said that he supports<\/u><\/ps-link> separate swipe fee legislation sponsored by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan. The comments set off a wave of <ps-link><u>letters and lobbying material<\/u><\/ps-link> against the ideas from the banking lobby, and <ps-link><u>top bankers themselves<\/u><\/ps-link> outlined this week what they believed would be major headwinds for their institutions should that kind of legislation pass.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hassett said on Friday morning that he didn&#8217;t actually think legislation would be necessary, and said that the administration had been talking with banks about issuing the cards.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our expectation is that it won&#8217;t necessarily require legislation because there will be really great new Trump cards presented for folks that are voluntarily provided by the banks,&#8221; Hassett said on Fox News Friday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When contacted for comment on whether Hassett&#8217;s commentary signal a retreat from Trump&#8217;s call for credit card legislation, a White House official said Friday that the president is &#8220;exploring every tool possible&#8221; to ease affordability.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hassett&#8217;s comments are not the first time the president has used the term &#8220;Trump card&#8221; \u2014 he was part of a short-lived syndicated <ps-link><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FcebmkQf9II\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">game show<\/a><\/ps-link> that aired from 1990-1991 by that same title. But analysts say that, for banks, this particular Trump card lowers the risk that Congress actually passes a law limiting credit card interest rates, if not eliminating it entirely.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is not going away anytime soon,&#8221; said Ed Mills, managing director of Washington Policy at Raymond James. &#8220;We have the Davos speech after that as a State of the Union. In between that there is the markup of the CLARITY Act and the Banking Committee and we have a housing bill moving. So you&#8217;re always looking at when you could get the next headline that moves stocks and right now, there&#8217;s a handful of periods of time where we need to pay attention.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The chances for the Durbin-Marshall bill being picked up remain higher than a credit card rate fee cap, said Ian Katz, a managing partner at Capital Alpha Partners.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Based in part on Hassett&#8217;s comments, I think the focus is on getting banks to offer some concessions \u2014 like a card product that lowers rates for certain customers \u2014 calling it a win and saying the president&#8217;s comments forced this to happen,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I thought it was interesting that Hassett said they won&#8217;t need legislation. I think that indicates that he&#8217;s managing expectations and that getting a bill capping interest rates through Congress is highly unlikely.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trump&#8217;s comments, and a renewed economic messaging push that focuses squarely on financial companies&#8217; role in affordability issues that Americans experience, comes before a midterm election cycle that&#8217;s expected to be difficult for many congressional Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But that doesn&#8217;t mean bankers should rest easy thinking that the issue will drop.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is clearly a midterm play,&#8221; Mills said. &#8220;That doesn&#8217;t mean it goes away after the midterms.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While markets have realized that a bill imposing a 10% rate cap is highly unlikely to pass, there&#8217;s still anticipation that something will, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When he feels that the political headwinds are against him and his party, he takes over messaging for the party,&#8221; Mills said. &#8220;I think the big thing for investors this week, though, is they recognize it&#8217;s very low probability \u2014 to near zero \u2014 that a 10% cap comes in. But [Republicans] have a history of Trump putting out a marker and then negotiating to something that seems more reasonable. He has moved the center of gravity.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanbanker.com\/news\/voluntary-trump-card-idea-lowers-risk-of-legislation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key insight: An idea floated by the White House saying banks will voluntarily offer &#8220;Trump cards&#8221; with a 10% interest rate limit could dull the president&#8217;s push for a bill capping all credit card interest rates at 10%. Expert quote: &#8220;Our expectation is that it won&#8217;t necessarily require legislation because there will be really great<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[369,2911,2079,7757,181,563,6669],"class_list":{"0":"post-24687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-banking","8":"tag-card","9":"tag-idea","10":"tag-legislation","11":"tag-lowers","12":"tag-risk","13":"tag-trump","14":"tag-voluntary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}