Posted on 01/09/2026 11:16:36 PM PST by MarlonRando
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," the president wrote on Truth Social late Friday.
Mr. Trump said the cap on interest rates should begin on Jan. 20, 2026, or the one-year anniversary of his second inauguration.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
That’s a pretty weak excuse. I don’t understand how they justify charging around 30-40% to make people literal serfs. God, I hate the banksters
Good idea to cap loan interest rates at 10 percent.
Another good idea would be to cap tax rates at 10 percent. Let people keep what they earn, let “Rome” have 10 percent but no more (both fed and state taxes combined).
Banks were in the 35% range. Pharmaceuticals were 50% or something crazy.
An Econ professor back in college said if your company can't do at least 10% in profits you should probably find another gig.
In the Bible there is a thing called the year of Jubilee. Where every 50 years or something everyone was to be freed from debt, slavery, etc. There is no record of it actually ever happening though.
The idea of a pause for a year to a 10% interest rate is a nice idea and in the spirit of Jubilee. But, it isn’t going to happen either.
Fine by me.
It will deny those who are credit risks from abusing the system.
I’m not ok with paying higher rates to subsidize their inability to pay their debts.
I have an airline rewards credit card that has increased to 26%, with a $99 annual fee. I don’t use it anymore, but don’t want to cancel it because I would lose all the points on it.
The rates have been “festering” for at least 10-15 years.
Doubt the companies will do it, but if they do they’ll probably close a bunch of accounts from riskier consumers.
This is one of the few things Trump has proposed that I’m firmly against. Interest rates should be determined by the free market. (Now I’d be all for shutting down the Fed as a non-free-market institution that manipulates interest rates, but that’s another matter.)
The end result of the credit card proposal will be that a lot of people won’t be able to get credit cards, or will have much lower limits.
The bad side is that the online economy is based on credit card purchases. If people don’t have ready access to credit cards, there will be a strong push for a government-run digital currency, just to keep Internet purchases viable. And there goes the last vestige of our privacy.
There is a good side too though — it will help out some people who are not very creditworthy and tend to overextend themselves.
Some people love usury.
so you’re saying it’s like the Doge dividend checks and all the other checks we are never going to see. Ha. Yeah probably.
Use the points dump the card.
Fort Lauderdale is nice this time of year. It’s going into the 60s come Monday brrrrrrr
They are unsecured loans to borrowers who are poor risks, so extending credit to them at all is only viable with outrageous rates to offset the losses.
What’s the difference between a loan shark preying on the poorest to keep them paying forever, and credit agencies doing it?
It makes no commercial sense to charge an unrecoverable interest rate, if it’s creating an unrecoverable settlement figure.
Interest rates for credit cards should be capped especially if the debtor is struggling to keep up.
Trump benefited several times from debt restructure and write off; arguably if his creditors had followed the credit card lender logic and refused to cut him a break, he would never have had his TV show or a shot at the Presidency. Nobody sheds a tear for the institutions that had to cut their losses to his benefit.
Trump calls for a 10%, one-year cap on credit card interest rates: ‘AFFORDABILITY!’
Very populist but this proposal would still have the obvious unintended consequence of forcing the revocation, recall— closing out of millions of the less credit- worthy accounts. Which wouldn’t be very popular
How would this be any different than the disastrous price caps of the 70’s?
Yep - they have usurious rates - especially when banks are only paying tenths of a percent on savings/checking accounts.
I don’t remember the last time I paid interest on a crdit card and we use them for everything - but never on what we wouldn’t normally spend so I have an automatic withdrawal set up to pay off all balances each month.
BTW - I went to my Credit Union to try to move some of my money into a higher interest vehicle and was told the best rates are only given for “new money”, so I can’t transfer my money to such a vehicle - they didn’t consider that other banks are doing the same thing so I’m going to find another bank with a similar deal and put a substantial sum into a new account with them to illustrate to my bank how stupid their rules are.
He doesn’t have this ability anyway
Agree. I always wondered about this. I get credit card offers of 29% - 40% from retailers and I have very good credit.
yes but my point being, why loan to them at all? If they are that risky, just cut your losses and they can borrow from mom.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.