Trump calls for cap on credit card interest rates in latest appeal to affordability concerns
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/09/business/affordability-trump-cap-credit-card-interest-rates?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit
Posted by cnn
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President Donald Trump on Friday [called for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates](https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/09/business/affordability-trump-cap-credit-card-interest-rates?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit) of 10%, saying the American public is being “ripped off” in a Truth Social post.
Trump called for the cap to come into effect on January 20, the one-year anniversary of his return to the White House. But he did not specify how a cap might happen, including whether he was calling for voluntary participation from credit card companies or looking for government mechanisms to enforce his proposal.
In his post, Trump cited “AFFORDABILITY!” The issue has become a source of frustration for many Americans, as years of accumulated inflation have heaped on price pressures. While many wealthier Americans have enjoyed years of double-digit stock market gains, advancing home prices and rising wages, those earning less have been squeezed by the combination of higher prices, debt and a slowing job market.
Trump has turned to populist economic announcements on social media to try to convince Americans that he’s making headway on the issue. On Thursday, for example, he posted about ordering “my representatives” to buy mortgage bonds to try to lower home costs; on Wednesday, he wrote about banning institutional investors from snapping up single-family homes.
So far, though, Americans don’t seem persuaded. In CNN’s most recent poll on the economy, 61% of Americans said Trump’s policies have “worsened economic conditions in this country.”
Affordability is a construct of the opposition party that doesn’t exist. Now let me throw spaghetti at the wall addressing the thing I claim isn’t real.
I would be encouraged by this sort of populist problem solving, if I thought it was more than just fishing for positive news coverage to distract from the several awful things that are infinitely more important at the moment.
Another $2000 doge check and whatever dollar tariff cheque promise: no plan to follow through, no action ever to be taken, but his base is dumb enough to think he’s throwing them a bone.
I mean, a price ceiling is a potentially effective strategy if you think that there exists market power on the side of CC issuers. But interesting that they don’t like other price controls, like rent or minimum wages (note: I’m not advocating for either of these as effective policies).
My hope is that people would use this to reduce balances. Not increase debt loads. Because even with relatively high rates, CC debt is way too high.
https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc
Capping interest rates does absolutely nothing for affordability lol. It’s not a bad thing to push for but it’s way downstream from the issue at hand.
People who are affected by CC interest rates are the people that max out their 20k limit on a cruise and will never pay it off even if it’s 0%. This proposal has no effect: people who abuse credit are unaffected by rate as for some reason they prefer debt.
Under what authority can he do this?
What counts as a “credit card”?
Are US consumers prepared to have all their rewards stripped? And for approvals to fall through the floor?
Which insiders shorted Visa, Mastercard, and Amex this week?
This doesn’t actually change anything even if he set interest rates at 3%. It doesn’t change the basic fact that necessary shit costs too much.
Credit Cards are just debt and it only passes the buck to later briefly but it all eventually comes around.
Such a law would collapse U.S. credit as companies cancel cards for low-score borrowers that they need high rates to profit from due to high default rates. Its a crash course in economic collapse.
Capitalist communist socialist it doesn’t matter what ideology Trump steals from he’ll implement the worst of it.
He’s like “Look at what Biden did to Overdraft fees! Here, this is my turn to try the same thing!” except not realizing that credit card fees have nothing to fucking do with affordability.
Also, I am tired of listening to boomers “Didn’t you hear? Trump wants to limit executive buyback and payment packages!” Like… beyond how in the hell is apost on truth social going to do that, and what is the framework? And you’re going to put those production stipulations into current contracts? How? And I thought government interference in private business was a bad thing… And so on, ad nauseum.
But no they think Trump is going to do something. Just goes to show having money doesn’t mean shit about intelligence or knowledge.
In the Senate (2025-2026), bipartisan bills like the “10 Percent Credit Card Interest Rate Cap Act” were introduced to set a 10% cap. Trump is just trying to take credit for this, but he had nothing to do with it.
Wasn’t it a communist plot when CFPB proposed late fees no higher than $8 under Joe Biden? This administration worked overtime to quickly reverse that rule change. Honestly this is what an administration that is flailing looks like.
Lmao. Banks would just respond by cratering card limits to offset default risk. Those interest rates are picked for a reason. So now we can continue not being able to afford anything without the credit card. Pick your poison
How would this even help? At the point where you’re paying interest on a credit card, your life has already crossed over the “affordable” threshold and lower rates don’t fix that.
It was a dumb idea when Bernie and AOC proposed it, and it’s a dumb idea now. It is funny watching people flip flop on this though.
Words for the word bot. Characters for the character throne.
Capping interest rates lower also lowers the risk threshold of consumer that will be approved for cards. Rephrased, this won’t improve the credit options for high-risk borrowers; it will eliminate them. Nobody will actually get better rates on their credit cards. You’ll get the same rate or you won’t get a card anymore.
This may be an overall good thing as it stops a predatory industry from preying on the most vulnerable, but it won’t really change much for the majority of people
Senator Warren’s brain child the Consumer Protection Agency was destroyed by this administration, they also reversed Biden’s ban on over draft fees. So give me a pass on all this.
It’s wild how this would’ve been applauded on Reddit that the big banks and lenders won’t be able to give out predatory high interest credit cards. But it was the orange man therefore Redditors will complain instead.
I’m starting to think Redditors wouldn’t want things to get even slightly better.
The only thing that would address affordability would be cutting regulations and reducing the budget deficit. This would also take care of interest rates. This is it, easy.
But both parties seem to think that some magical solution will solve everything.
Lmao this is straight socialism. Grossly unconstitutional. Also a great way to collapse the credit markets and make life drastically less affordable for a big segment of his base.
First off, none of this is Trumps doing. There is a policy think tank of which Miller, Vought, Vance et al are implementing the P25 manifesto. Announcements will be carefully crafted for the shitgibbon to only contain words they are confident he can pronounce.
I don’t have a problem with this. Credit card rates are exploitative. I do have a problem though with foreign policy, domestic suppression of dissent and the whole Christofascist agenda.
The fan has stopped spinning, it’s fallen over and is no longer visible due to sheer shit volume.
Calls for calls for calls for. Freaking put your money where your mouth is and do it already. The fool keeps talking about how powerful he is and how he can do whatever he wants, but he hasn’t done jack shite to actually tangibly address affordability.
It’s very funny to see Trump adopt leftist policies at the drop of a hat when politically convenient
And also funny to see the left suddenly discover why leftist policies are so harmful because of their undying need to oppose everything Trump says
The most important number here is 30%. Which is what Trump’s favorability hit and the reason we will see lots of announcements for weird and unlikely to actually happen affordability policies.
>But supporting caps on credit card rates represents something of an about-face for Trump, whose administration last year ditched an $8 credit card fee limit imposed by the Biden administration. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at the time estimated that the Biden administration’s action would save families more than $10 billion a year by cutting fees from an average of $32.
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Wouldn’t this likely result in credit as a whole being exclusive to a select group of people? A 10% APR isn’t enough of a profit to risk losing money.
if Biden did this most of this comment section would applaud. If this goes through it’s interesting because it’s more a restriction on capitalism but actually good for the everyday American paying hundreds of dollars in interest a month, and not catering to any specific class
And next week, various banks with significant credit card revenue will make a contribution to the White House ballroom project. And Trump won’t mention it again until he needs another influx of cash.
This reads like one of the decrees from the self-appointed Q-Anon (funny how quickly that disappeared, eh?) Queen of Canada. I think she also banned credit card interest at some point.
I’m for a cap, but 10% is crazy. There are too many people who aren’t reliable enough to lend to for 10%. A lot of people would lose access to credit. I would support a 20% cap, a lot of people are paying more than that and this would really help them get out of debt. I’d also say if someone isn’t worth lending to at 20%, maybe them being cut off isn’t such a bad thing.