Is it legal for Trump to put his picture on US Mint dollar coin?

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President Donald Trump appears poised to enactment his representation connected some sides of a commemorative $1 coin issued by the United States Mint – the country’s shaper of ineligible tender coinage that besides produces commemorative coins.

On October 3, the White House re-shared an X station from US Treasurer Brandon Beach confirming reports that the Trump medication was seeking to enactment the president’s representation connected the beforehand and backmost of a dollar coin commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary.

What has the Trump medication proposed?

Beach’s X station showed the coin’s front, featuring Trump’s broadside profile, and its flip broadside – an illustration of Trump pumping his fist aft a 2024 assassination attempt successful Butler, Pennsylvania. The phrase, “Fight Fight Fight” lines the coin’s perimeter, referencing a Trump rallying outcry repeated aft the assassination attempt. Trump was not president astatine the clip of the assassination attempt.

At an October 3 White House property briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “I’m not definite if he’s seen it, but I’m definite he’ll emotion it.”

Would this plan beryllium legal?

Multiple pieces of coinage authorities enacted implicit the past fewer decades person included circumstantial connection banning surviving radical from being portrayed connected US-minted coins. In 1 lawsuit – a bid of coins launched successful 2007 honouring each president – the law’s substance goes further to specify that nary coin successful the bid whitethorn “bear the representation of a surviving erstwhile oregon existent president, oregon of immoderate deceased erstwhile president during the two-year play pursuing the day of the decease of that president”.

That obstruction connected surviving presidents was circumstantial to that peculiar statesmanlike coinage series, nevertheless – not to the bid that would see the projected Trump coin.

The guidance governing the bid the Trump medication is considering comes from authorities authorising a bid of coins for the nation’s 250th anniversary, known arsenic the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020.

Trump signed the measurement into instrumentality successful January 2021, during his archetypal presidency, pursuing unanimous transition by some chambers of Congress. It authorises the redesigns of quarters, fractional dollars and $1 coins successful respective sequential series, 1 of which is simply a 250th day bid to beryllium launched successful 2026.

The instrumentality for the 250th bid refers specifically to the reverse of the coin: “No caput and shoulders representation oregon bust of immoderate person, surviving oregon dead, and nary representation of a surviving idiosyncratic whitethorn beryllium included successful the plan connected the reverse of immoderate coin” successful the series. But it doesn’t regularisation retired a representation connected the beforehand of the coin.

That whitethorn not beryllium a precocious barroom for Trump to leap if helium wants to mint a coin with his representation connected it.

Unless Congress acts, the process from present would impact lone medication officials, meaning the president could support nonstop control. Even if the courts were inclined to artifact the proposal, experts said it’s uncertain whether anyone would beryllium capable to mention a nonstop harm from producing a Trump coin – a request for filing a lawsuit.

“It’s unclear who would person lasting to writer here,” said Gabriel Mathy, an subordinate prof of economics astatine American University successful Washington, DC, who has studied coinage issues.

Legal oregon not, past has not favoured utilizing surviving radical connected US currency

Whether oregon not a Trump coin would beryllium legal, numismatic experts – those who specialise successful coins and related items – said there’s a longstanding contented successful the United States of not depicting surviving radical connected coins.

“Not featuring existent presidents connected coins is an important and enduring portion of the United States’ past arsenic a republic,” Mathy said. “Going backmost thousands of years, coins traditionally carried the representation of the existent monarch. This is inactive the lawsuit successful the United Kingdom, wherever coins are minted with the look of the reigning monarch, arsenic good arsenic successful immoderate different monarchies.

“The United States was founded arsenic a republic, and the founders wanted to debar making the president into a monarch,” Mathy said. Putting a surviving president connected a coin would beryllium “inconsistent with a agelong contented of American republicanism”.

Despite the norm, surviving radical person sometimes appeared connected US currency.

President Abraham Lincoln, his Treasury Secretary Salmon P Chase and US Army General Winfield Scott were among a tiny fig of surviving figures to look connected US insubstantial currency.

During the Civil War, Spencer Clark, an authoritative with the national bureau liable for printing insubstantial money, enactment his ain representation connected a five-cent note. He did it by leveraging a ineligible loophole: Congress had approved a enactment featuring an representation of William Clark, the explorer from the Lewis & Clark expedition of the Louisiana Territory, but lawmakers neglected to specify William Clark’s archetypal sanction successful the legislation, writer Blake Stilwell wrote in Military.com.

So Spencer Clark, having the aforesaid surname, inserted his ain representation alternatively of William Clark’s. Clark besides produced a abstracted enactment that featured then-US Treasurer Francis E Spinner.

By the Civil War’s end, “Congress had clip to wage attraction to what the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was up to,” Stilwell wrote.

So successful 1866, Congress passed a instrumentality saying nary representation oregon likeness of a surviving idiosyncratic would look connected “bonds, securities, notes, fractional oregon postal currency of the United States”.

The instrumentality doesn’t notation coins, however. Living figures – and adjacent 1 surviving president, Calvin Coolidge – person occasionally been featured connected coins, including immoderate successful caller years.

In 1921, the US released a commemorative coin to people Alabama’s centennial, featuring broadside views of William Bibb, the state’s archetypal governor, and Thomas Kilby, its politician during the centennial. “This coin was the archetypal ever created by the Mint to transportation a surviving person’s portrait,” the Mint’s website says.

In 1926, during the nation’s sesquicentennial celebration, Congress authorised the minting of a commemorative coin. The designers settled connected a associated representation of George Washington and Coolidge, who was president during the sesquicentennial.

The coin proved unpopular; of 1 cardinal fractional dollars that were minted, much than 850,000 were returned to the Mint and melted.

The different 2 examples we could find of a surviving fig minted connected coins are much recent.

The Mint created a congressionally authorised coin to commemorate the 1995 Special Olympics World Games. Congress didn’t dictate the design, but the beforehand of the coin featured Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics for radical with intelligence disabilities. She died successful 2009.

On February 6, 2016, the Mint released a congressionally authorised coin for erstwhile President Ronald Reagan and erstwhile First Lady Nancy Reagan, tied to the precocious president’s 105th birthday. Nancy Reagan died 1 period later, connected March 6, 2016.

A state has already minted a coin with Trump’s representation connected it

In 2025, the West African federation of Liberia produced a $1, one-ounce metallic commemorative coin with Trump’s representation connected the front, crowned by a laurel leafage successful golden arsenic if helium were a Roman emperor. The motto read, “In Don We Trust.”

If you tin find 1 successful stock, it would outgo astir $150 to $200, according to Google searches.

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