President Trump on Friday called for a one-year cap limiting credit card interest rates to 10 percent, but offered no details on how he planned to enact such a policy, which would typically require congressional or regulatory action.
Mr. Trump said on the campaign trail that he supported such a limit: “We’re going to put a temporary cap on credit card interest rates at 10 percent,” he said in September 2024.
But once in office, Mr. Trump did not pursue the promise. His officials killed a regulation, enacted during the Biden administration that would have capped credit card late fees at $8, and his administration sought to close — without congressional approval — the nation’s top consumer finance watchdog, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Russell T. Vought, the director of the White House budget office, has served since early last year as the consumer bureau’s director. He halted bank exams, ended dozens of lawsuits against financial companies accused of violating consumer protection laws, sought to fire more than 90 percent of the agency’s staff, and said recently that he hopes the bureau will be eliminated “within the next two, three months.” Litigation in federal court has so far prevented him from doing that.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%, and even more,” Mr. Trump said Friday on social media. “AFFORDABILITY!”
As polling shows approval of his economic policies has fallen and the midterm elections approach, the president has veered from vowing to be the “affordability president” to dismissing the issue as a hoax. Last month, Mr. Trump called affordability a “fake narrative” and “con job” concocted by Democrats.
“It doesn’t mean anything to anybody,” he said at a cabinet meeting.
The average credit card interest rate is slightly under 20 percent, according to Bankrate.com.
If Mr. Trump pursues legislative action to lower credit card fees, Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, back the idea. The two introduced a bill last year to cap fees at 10 percent for several years. Without support from the administration, the bill did not move forward.
Hours before Mr. Trump’s social media post, Mr. Sanders zinged him on his own social media accounts. “Trump promised to cap credit card interest rates at 10% and stop Wall Street from getting away with murder,” Mr. Sanders wrote. “Instead, he deregulated big banks charging up to 30% interest on credit cards.”
Credit card lenders make a $130 billion a year off interest and fees, according to a 2024 consumer bureau estimate. Industry trade groups staunchly oppose interest limits.
“Study after study have shown that even modest government price controls raise costs rather than lowering them,” the American Bankers Association and 52 state bankers associations wrote last year in a letter opposing a 10 percent interest cap.
Stacy Cowley is a Times business reporter who writes about a broad array of topics related to consumer finance, including student debt, the banking industry and small business.
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