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The Treasury Department said that a 2020 collectible coinage law allows a living person to appear on U.S. currency.
Oct. 6, 2025Updated 6:18 p.m. ET
The Trump administration on Monday defended its plan to mint a $1 coin bearing the image of President Trump despite the fact that an 1866 law dictates that only the deceased can appear on U.S. currency.
Initial designs for the coins released by the U.S. treasurer last week stirred controversy and accusations that the Trump administration was violating the law so that Mr. Trump could honor himself by putting his face on a coin. The 1866 law enshrined a tradition that individuals could appear on U.S. currency only posthumously to avoid the appearance that America was a monarchy.
But in a post on Monday, the Treasury Department said that featuring Mr. Trump on a coin in celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday was authorized under the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020.
Quoting from the legislation, it noted that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was exercising authorities to issue coinage “with designs emblematic of the United States semiquincentennial” and that the proposed images reflect Mr. Trump and his vision for America.
“On this momentous anniversary, there is no profile more emblematic for the front of this coin than that of our serving President, Donald J. Trump,” the Treasury Department said in a post on X.
According to draft images of the coin, the “heads” side would feature Mr. Trump’s profile and the “tails” side would depict an image of him standing before the American flag and pumping his fist under the words “Fight, Fight, Fight.” The coin would be legal tender and go into circulation in 2026.
The 2020 law does appear to put restrictions on images of the “tails” side of new coins. It states that “no head and shoulders portrait or bust of any person, living or dead, and no portrait of a living person may be included in the design on the reverse of specified coins.”
Like many Trump administration policies, the fate of the coin could ultimately be decided by the courts.
The initial restriction on featuring the living on currency came in 1866. An explanation of the legislation on an archived page from the Treasury’s website noted that the act “was caused by an uproar over the actions of the chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Spencer Clark,” who had “placed himself on a five-cent note and had a large quantity of them printed before it was noticed.”
That page has been removed from the Treasury’s website.
The cost of producing the coins is not clear. It will depend in large part on the materials used and the number of coins minted.
The decision to produce a new coin — albeit a commemorative one — comes after Mr. Trump earlier this year ordered the Treasury Department to stop producing pennies because they cost more to make than they are worth.
But Mr. Trump is no stranger to currency controversies. During his first term he delayed an Obama administration plan to make Harriet Tubman the face of the $20 note after calling the change “pure political correctness.”
A correction was made on
Oct. 6, 2025
:
An earlier version of this article misspelled the first name of an American abolitionist. She was Harriet Tubman, not Harriett.
Alan Rappeport is an economic policy reporter for The Times, based in Washington. He covers the Treasury Department and writes about taxes, trade and fiscal matters.
