This past Friday, President Donald Trump summoned his inner Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and endorsed their long-running efforts to lower credit card interest rates.
“Please be informed 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, which festered unimpeded during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration,” he wrote on Truth Social. “AFFORDABILITY! 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%.”
Oh, now we care about affordability again? It’s no longer a “hoax”?
For a Republican Party that has spent decades branding price controls as socialism and government overreach, this is about as socialist as it gets. Trump is proposing the federal government dictate the price of consumer credit across the economy.
At least Trump has noticed something that genuinely harms Americans, even if he conveniently ignores that credit card rates “festered unimpeded” during his own first term as well. Blaming former President Joe Biden gets old. The only meaningful check on credit card companies over the past decade was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, spearheaded by Warren and gutted by Trump as supposed “waste, fraud, and abuse,” despite having recovered more than $20 billion for consumers from many of the companies he now claims are ripping them off.
A security officer works inside of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau headquarters this past February.
All that hypocrisy aside, Congress—and Democrats in particular—has hardly rushed to anger banks. It’s an embarrassment that the only legislation filed during the previous session of Congress to cap credit card interest rates, at 18%, came from insurrectionist Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, and that it had zero co-sponsors.
That improved a smidge last year, when Sanders joined Hawley with a bill to cap rates at 10%. Still, the only co-sponsors were Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, both Democrats. Progress, sure, but hardly a movement.
The politics here are ugly for both parties, yet as a populist rallying cry, it’s undeniably effective. Warren has said she’d happily work with Trump to make his pledge a reality—less out of optimism, probably, than a willingness to call his bluff. Because if Trump’s own words are taken at face value, he’s not serious at all. Despite his most fervent fantasies, Trump is not a dictator and cannot simply declare this into existence.
Trump even cites an “effective” date of Jan. 20, treating policy as if it can be manifested by proclamation. Worse, he told reporters aboard Air Force One that lenders who failed to comply would be “in violation of the law.” He is not calling for legislation. He is either pretending he can impose his will by fiat or actually believes he can. Either way, it’s absurd because, unfortunately, there is no such law. Whatever Grandpa Trump has rattling around in his head, it isn’t rooted in reality.
On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson even downplayed Trump’s push, saying the proposed cap could have “negative secondary effects.”
And reality is messier than Trump’s social media post. As of this month, the average credit card interest rate sits around 24% and can exceed 30% for the riskiest borrowers. That isn’t accidental. Rates are higher because lenders absorb disproportionate losses during downturns, have little collateral to recover, and no guarantee how long balances will remain outstanding.
Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont walks in the U.S. Capitol this past June.
Even so, those realities don’t justify the industry’s eye-popping profits. As Sanders noted in early 2025, over the previous five years, Visa made $67.5 billion in profits, Mastercard made $44.3 billion, and American Express made $33.8 billion. This is not a fragile industry managing risk; it is one of the most profitable sectors in the economy.
Cap interest rates, and lenders would almost certainly respond by pulling credit from the riskiest consumers—generally, the poorest people. Serious legislation would need to address that reality, or it would risk pushing economically marginalized Americans out of the formal credit system altogether and toward far more predatory alternatives. Whether those consumers should have access to credit cards at all is a fair debate. Pretending the problem solves itself is not a policy.
And if lawmakers actually wanted to target affordability while helping small businesses, they could also address the roughly 3% processing fee credit card companies charge merchants. These companies make money on both ends of every swipe. They’ve perfected the art of squeezing consumers and businesses simultaneously. Regulating that would benefit everyone except their top executives.
So, if Congress and the president genuinely cared about affordability, there would be plenty to work with here. But don’t hold your breath. The more likely explanation is that Trump declared victory so his sycophants can claim “Trump capped interest rates!” Americans will check their statements and see nothing has changed, but Trump is far more invested in his alternate reality than in delivering results in ours.
Writing a social media post is easy. Actually caring about regular Americans would require confronting what would become among the largest lobbying efforts in American history. And that is not going to happen.
