The U.S. Treasury has plans for next year that will surely please President Donald Trump, and might also be illegal.
A spokesperson for the Treasury told Axios on Friday that it is considering minting a Trump coin to honor America’s 250th anniversary next year.
Treasurer Brandon Beach, who heads the U.S. Mint and reports to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, posted a draft of the possible design on social media on Friday.
The illustration features Trump’s left-side profile on one side of the coin and is captioned, “In God We Trust: 1776-2026.” The other side shows Trump standing in front of an American flag and raising his right fist in the air under the words “Fight Fight Fight.”
Beach’s post seemed more composed for lib-trolling than info-sharing. “No fake news here. These first drafts honoring America’s 250th Birthday and @POTUS are real,” he confirmed on X.
“Looking forward to sharing more soon, once the obstructionist shutdown of the United States government is over.”
Some people who saw the announcement wondered if such a coin would even be legal, considering that Trump is a living person.
Federal law appears to prohibit the depiction of living persons on U.S. currency and coinage. In addition, the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, which allows for commemorative $1 coins to be minted for a single year to honor the semiquincentennial, says: “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.”
A Treasury spokesperson told HuffPost that the 2020 law “does not specifically forbid the depiction of any person on the commemorative dollar coin,” just “a head-and-shoulders portrait/bust on the reverse side of the coin, not the front side.”
The spokesperson said the reverse side of the coin depicting Trump holding up his fist is “depicted as part of a larger design, and not in portrait or bust profile.”
The announcement of the proposed coins caused quite a stir on social media.
