A shopper pays with a credit card at the farmer’s market in San Francisco on March 27, 2025.<\/p>\n
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> said on Friday he was calling for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10% starting on Jan. 20, but he did not provide details on how his plan would come to fruition or how he planned to make companies comply.<\/p>\n Trump also made the pledge during the 2024 campaign, which he won, but analysts dismissed it at the time, saying such a step required congressional approval.<\/p>\n Lawmakers from both the Democratic and Republican parties have raised concerns about high rates and have called for those to be addressed. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n There have been some legislative efforts in Congress to pursue such a proposal but they are yet to become law and in his post Trump did not offer explicit support to any specific bill.<\/p>\n Opposition lawmakers have criticized Trump, a Republican, for failing to deliver on his campaign pledge.<\/p>\n “Effective January 20, 2026, I, as President of the United States, am calling for a one year cap on Credit Card Interest Rates of 10%,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, without providing more details.<\/p>\n “Please be informed that we will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies,” Trump added.<\/p>\n U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat in the Senate Banking Committee, said Trump’s call was meaningless without a bill being passed by Congress.<\/p>\n “Begging credit card companies to play nice is a joke. I said a year ago if Trump was serious, I’d work to pass a bill to cap rates,” Warren said, while criticizing Trump’s attempts to gut the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.<\/p>\n The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on details of the call from Trump, but said on social media without elaborating that the president was capping the rates.<\/p>\n Some major U.S. banks and credit card issuers like American Express<\/a>, Capital One Financial<\/a>, JPMorgan Chase<\/a>, Citigroup<\/a> and Bank of America<\/a> did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Some banking advocacy groups said in a joint statement that a 10% interest rate cap would “reduce credit availability” and “only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives.”<\/p>\n The statement came from the Consumer Bankers Association, Bank Policy Institute, American Bankers Association, Financial Services Forum and Independent Community Bankers of America.<\/p>\n Lawmakers have raised concerns about rates<\/p>\n Independent U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders<\/a> of Vermont, a fierce Trump critic, and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Republican, have previously introduced bipartisan legislation to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for five years. This bill explicitly directs credit card companies to limit rates as part of broader consumer relief legislation.<\/p>\n Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida have also introduced a bill in the House to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, reflecting cross-aisle interest in addressing high rates.<\/p>\n Billionaire fund manager Bill Ackman<\/a>, who endorsed Trump in the last elections, said on X the U.S. president’s call was a “mistake.”<\/p>\n