President Donald Trump on Friday told credit card company officials to lower their interest rates to no more than 10% for one year starting on January 20. Photo by Joerg Carstensen/EPA
Jan. 10 (UPI) — If President Donald Trump has his way, credit card companies will limit their respective interest rates to no more than 10% for a year to make them more affordable.
Trump took to social media to call on all credit card companies to voluntarily lower their interest rates for one year, starting this month, to promote affordability.
“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,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Friday.
“AFFORDABILITY! Effective January 20, 2026, I, as president of the United States, am calling for a one-year cap on credit card Interest Rates of 10%,” he said, adding that Jan. 20 is the one-year anniversary of his second term in office.
The Federal Reserve reported a record-high average annual percentage rate of nearly 23% and rising in 2023, the now-defunct Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said.
That’s up from an average APR of 16.4% in 2021 and 20.4% in 2022, according to the Federal Reserve.
While the average APR rate rose significantly under the Biden administration, Trump last year eliminated the Biden administration policy that limited credit card fees to no more than $8.
The average fee previously was $32 for late credit card payments and other fee-triggering activities.