Changing the Law for Trump: Congress Moves to Overturn Century-Old Ban on Putting Living People on US Cash

Congress is weighing whether to change a century‑old restriction on US currency in Washington after Treasury officials prepared mock‑ups for a new $250 bill (valued around £185) featuring Donald Trump's portrait, a move that senior figures stress cannot happen without new legislation.

The proposed Trump $250 bill, floated as part of America's 250th birthday celebrations, would make him the first living person on official US cash in more than 150 years if it ever leaves the drawing board.

Trump $250 Bill Tied To America's 250th Anniversary

The new proposal is bound up with the country's semiquincentennial. Republican congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina introduced the 'Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act' last year, arguing that a $250 denomination should mark the 250th anniversary and that Trump's record on inflation makes him, in Wilson's words, 'the most valuable president' whose legacy is 'deserving of currency recognition.'

The draft law would carve out an exception to the living‑person ban if the individual 'is or has been' president and would instruct the Treasury to print the new note within one year.

Officials insist that, for now, the Trump $250 bill exists only as planning material. A Treasury Department spokesperson told the BBC the agency 'is conducting appropriate planning and due diligence' in response to Wilson's legislation and added that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the specialist unit that designs and produces US notes, has been asked for concept work.

Treasury says there has been no order to print any currency before Congress acts.

Treasury's Trump $250 Bill Preparation

Reporting by the Washington Post, repeated across US outlets, suggests those internal designs are more than a rough sketch. The paper obtained a prototype that places Trump's portrait in the centre of the note, shows his signature on one side and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's on the other, with the image of the president created by British painter Iain Alexander.

According to that account, some staff at the printing bureau were alarmed because new notes usually take years of security testing and inter‑agency coordination before they are ready for circulation.

At a White House briefing, Bessent acknowledged both the legal obstacles and the political sensitivity. He told reporters that the Trump $250 bill is 'all in the hands' of Congress and said the department was simply preparing in case the draft law passes. 'We prepare for everything if it gets passed ... we have to prepare in advance,' he said, arguing that officials cannot 'draw something up the day before.'

Asked about the legality, Bessent set out what he called his two mandates on currency: 'At present, no living person can be on US currency, and the currency must say "In God we trust".'

Pressed on the optics of putting the sitting president on a high‑value note, he replied that he did not 'think there's anything untoward about having the person who is president of the United States on the 250th anniversary bill', while declining to say whether he personally approves of the project.

Critics Question Priorities Behind The Trump $250 Bill

Democrats in Congress have been much less cautious. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, criticised the administration's focus on the Trump $250 bill as detached from daily economic pressures.

'As Americans struggle with the rising cost of gas, groceries, housing, and health care, President Trump's priorities for taxpayer dollars are completely detached from the challenges families face every day,' he said.

Warner added that if the White House put 'even half as much energy into working to lower costs as it does into stoking the president's ego, American families wouldn't need that new $250 bill just to fill up their gas tanks.'

There is a second legal hurdle beyond the 1866 ban. Existing statute specifies which denominations may be printed and does not include $250. Wilson's bill would therefore have to amend more than one section of federal law and then secure majorities in both the House and the Senate, where 60 votes would be needed to overcome a filibuster.

Trump $250 Bill Fits A Broader Currency Push

Even without a new banknote, Trump's image is already being woven into US money and symbols. Treasury has announced a circulating $1 coin bearing a side portrait of the president to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, along with a small batch of 24‑carat gold commemorative coins showing Trump leaning over the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

Both designs were unanimously approved by the Commission of Fine Arts, an advisory panel whose members were appointed by Trump.

Democratic lawmakers argue that the wider effort to mint and print Trump's likeness strains the spirit of the 1866 law, though commemorative coins sit outside the ban. Treasury points to a 2020 statute authorising special semiquincentennial coinage as its legal footing for the $1 pieces and the gold issues.

Separately, the department has confirmed that Trump's signature will start appearing on all new paper currency, beginning with the $100 bill (valued around £74) in June. Bessent has said that change is meant to mark the 250th anniversary rather than overturn the living‑portrait rule, since signatures are not defined in law as likenesses.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing notes that developing a new note usually involves lengthy testing that 'can take years to successfully complete' and that designs are generally made public only six to eight months before launch, to allow global banks and cash‑handling businesses to prepare without giving counterfeiters too much of a head start.

Officials have already conceded it is unclear whether any Trump $250 bill could be ready in time for 4 July, even if Congress surprised everyone and moved quickly.

Federal law has, since 1866, prohibited the use of living people on US banknotes after a Treasury official, Spencer Clark, quietly put his own face on a 5‑cent note.

Today, the largest denomination in production is the $100 bill with Benjamin Franklin. Higher notes including $500, $1,000 and $10,000 (values around £370, £742, and £7,425) were discontinued in 1969; they remain legal tender but are mostly held by collectors rather than found in wallets.