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Treasury to Debut $100 Bills with Trump’s Signature, Ending Longtime Tradition

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U.S. paper money will carry President Donald Trump’s signature starting this summer, the Treasury Department said Thursday, breaking a 165‑year tradition in which only senior Treasury officials signed the nation’s currency.nytimes +1 The move, billed as part of celebrations for the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, will also remove the Treasurer’s signature from new notes for the first time since 1861.nytimes +1

The first $100 bills featuring Trump’s signature alongside that of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are scheduled to roll off presses in June 2026, with other denominations to follow.nytimes +1 Existing notes will remain legal tender, but all newly printed paper currency will eventually bear the president’s name, effectively turning the “Trump dollar” into the default design over time.usatoday +1

A Historic Break With Currency Tradition

For more than a century, U.S. banknotes have carried two signatures: the Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasurer of the United States, a largely symbolic but longstanding acknowledgment of the officials charged with safeguarding federal finances.nytimes +1 Reuters reported that Trump’s name will replace the Treasurer’s, ending an “unbroken line” of treasurer signatures that began with the first federal currency issues during the Civil War.nytimes

Treasury officials framed the change as both a patriotic gesture and a nod to the administration’s economic record. “There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S. dollar bills bearing his name,” Bessent said in a statement, calling the Semiquincentennial an appropriate moment for the redesign.bbc +1 The department gave no indication of how long the new signature arrangement would last or whether a future administration could easily reverse it.politico

Legal Flashpoint and Political Backlash

The decision arrived amid parallel efforts by the Trump administration to place the president’s image on commemorative and potentially circulating coins, including a 24‑karat gold piece approved this month by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.thehill Those moves have already triggered a federal lawsuit in Oregon and a Democratic bill, the “Change Corruption Act,” that would ban the likeness of any living or sitting president from appearing on U.S. currency.wcnc +1

Critics argue the dollar‑bill signature push is part of the same pattern and may collide with a web of statutes and norms that have kept living leaders off American money. A Reconstruction‑era law from 1866 has long been read to bar portraits of living people on U.S. notes and securities, and a 2005 act governing presidential $1 coins restricts depictions of living presidents on coins.cbsnews While those measures do not clearly address signatures, opponents say the spirit is being violated. “President Trump’s self‑celebrating maneuvers are authoritarian actions worthy of dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, not the United States of America,” Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said as he promoted his currency bill.wral Supporters counter that Congress has given Treasury wide latitude over note design and note that financial markets showed no discernible reaction to Thursday’s announcement.nytimes +1

The Bigger Picture

The Trump signature plan turned a typically obscure design detail into another front in the battle over how far a president can go in stamping his personal brand onto national institutions. With legal challenges already mounting over proposed Trump coins and legislation pending to rein in future currency experiments, the first “Trump dollars” due in June are likely to circulate into a country still arguing over what, and who, belongs on its money.wcnc +2