Note for Trump: US Treasury designs US$250 bill with president’s face
Scott Bessent confirms planning for currency despite a long-standing legal ban on living faces on banknotes
US President Donald Trump could soon appear on a new US$250 bill, in the Republican’s latest move to shatter US traditions by putting his personal stamp on national institutions.
A proposal for the new bill, featuring a glaring Trump, was first reported on Thursday by The Washington Post.
If carried out, it would be the first time the image of a living person - let alone a president - had appeared on US currency in a century and a half.
“Right now there is proposed legislation - front of the House, in front of the Senate - to change the first requirement so that a living person, Donald J. Trump, could be on a US$250 bill,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a media briefing on Thursday.
“I don’t think that there’s anything untoward about having the President of the United States, the person who’s president of the United States, on the 250th anniversary bill,” Bessent said.
He said the Treasury Department has made advance preparations if legislation were passed, but “will stick to the law”.