The Claim

Directed credit card companies to cap interest rates at 10% to provide Americans needed relief.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

That the president directed credit card companies to cap their interest rates at 10%, and that this direction provided relief to American consumers.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That the president has the authority to direct private companies to set their interest rates. That credit card companies complied. That American consumers are actually paying 10% or less on their credit card balances. That this represents a completed action with real-world consequences — “directed” and “needed relief” are both past-tense constructions implying the relief has been delivered.

What is conspicuously absent?

That no law, executive order, or regulation exists that caps credit card interest rates at 10%. That the president lacks the constitutional authority to unilaterally set private-sector interest rates. That the average credit card APR at the time of the claim was approximately 20-22% — more than double the claimed cap. That no credit card company has implemented a 10% rate cap. That multiple bills proposing such a cap (S.381, H.R. 1944, S.2781) were introduced in Congress but none advanced past committee referral. That the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — the administration’s signature legislation — contains no credit card rate cap provision. That on January 11, 2026, Trump told reporters credit card companies would be “in violation of the law” if they didn’t comply by January 20, despite no such law existing.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

The average credit card interest rate in Q4 2025 was approximately 20.97-22.80%, more than double the claimed 10% cap. The Federal Reserve’s G.19 Consumer Credit report shows the average APR on all credit card accounts was 21.47% in Q4 2025, while accounts assessed interest averaged 22.80%. Bankrate’s independent tracking shows an average of 19.58% as of March 2026. No movement toward 10% is visible in any data set. Credit card rates rose from approximately 14.60% in 2021 to above 20% in 2023-2025, driven by the Federal Reserve’s rate-hiking cycle, and have remained elevated. ¹

No federal law, executive order, or regulation caps credit card interest rates at 10%. PolitiFact investigated and rated Trump’s claim that credit card companies would be “in violation of the law” as FALSE on January 12, 2026. The White House provided no response when asked what legal authority would support Trump’s assertion. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Public Law 119-21, signed July 4, 2025) — the administration’s flagship legislation — contains no provision capping credit card interest rates. No executive order establishing such a cap has been issued. ²

The president lacks constitutional authority to unilaterally set private-sector interest rates. Law professors Ilya Somin (George Mason University) and Michael Gerhardt (University of North Carolina) both confirmed that executive orders govern federal operations, not private companies. Gerhardt stated: “I doubt the order, if that is what it is, is constitutional, given that this rule should come from Congress.” Credit card interest rate regulation is a matter for Congress under the Commerce Clause, not presidential directive. ³

Multiple bills proposing credit card rate caps were introduced in the 119th Congress but none has been enacted. Senator Bernie Sanders introduced S.381, the “10 Percent Credit Card Interest Rate Cap Act,” on February 4, 2025. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced the companion H.R. 1944 on March 6, 2025. Senator Richard Durbin introduced S.2781, proposing a 36% usury cap, on September 11, 2025. All three were referred to committee and none advanced further. GovTrack estimates S.381’s chance of enactment at 9% and H.R. 1944’s at 5%. ⁴

No credit card company has implemented a 10% interest rate cap. As of March 2026, no major bank or credit card issuer has voluntarily capped its rates at 10%. The banking industry strongly opposed any cap, with financial organizations warning it would “reduce credit availability” and harm millions of consumers. ⁵

Strong Inferences

Trump’s January 9-11, 2026 statements appear designed to claim credit for a policy that was never implemented. On January 9, 2026 — eleven days before the “365 wins” article was published — Trump posted on Truth Social announcing a one-year 10% credit card interest rate cap effective January 20, 2026. On January 11, he told reporters aboard Air Force One that credit card companies would be “in violation of the law” if they didn’t comply. The White House shared the announcement on X on January 10. This sequence — announcement, social media amplification, claim of legal force — mirrors other items on the “365 wins” list where an announcement was treated as an accomplishment regardless of whether the underlying action was implemented. The “365 wins” article was published January 20, 2026 — the very date Trump claimed the cap would take effect. ⁶

The legal framework governing credit card interest rates makes presidential direction particularly meaningless. Under 12 U.S.C. Section 85 and the Supreme Court’s 1978 ruling in Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Service Corp. (439 U.S. 299), nationally chartered banks can charge interest rates allowed by the laws of their chartering state, regardless of the borrower’s state of residence. Because major credit card issuers are headquartered in states like Delaware and South Dakota that have no usury caps, there is currently no federal ceiling on credit card rates. Only an act of Congress — amending the Truth in Lending Act or establishing a national usury standard — could impose a binding rate cap. A presidential “direction” to private companies carries no legal force. ⁷

With $1.28 trillion in credit card debt at 20%+ interest, the stakes of this claim are enormous — making the absence of any real action more damaging. The New York Fed’s Q4 2025 Household Debt and Credit Report shows total credit card balances at $1.28 trillion, with delinquencies continuing to rise. At average rates above 20%, American consumers are paying roughly $260 billion per year in credit card interest. A genuine cap at 10% would represent approximately $130 billion in annual savings — roughly $1,000 per household. The gap between the claim of “needed relief” and the reality of no action whatsoever is not a matter of degree or interpretation. It is a claim of something that did not happen. ⁸

What the Evidence Shows

This claim is straightforwardly false. It asserts that the president “directed” credit card companies to cap rates at 10% and that this provided “needed relief.” Neither half of that sentence is true. No binding directive was issued, and no relief was delivered.

The word “directed” does real work here. It implies authority and compliance. But the president has no authority to set private-sector interest rates. Executive orders govern the operations of the federal government, not the pricing decisions of Citibank and Capital One. When pressed, the White House could not identify any law that would make noncompliance a “violation.” Two constitutional law professors independently confirmed the obvious: there can be no violation of law without an actual law.

What actually happened was more modest and more cynical. On January 9, 2026 — conveniently timed for the “365 wins” list being prepared for January 20 — Trump posted on Truth Social about a 10% rate cap. He followed up by telling reporters that companies would be “in violation of the law” if they didn’t comply. But no law was signed. No executive order was issued. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the administration’s own signature legislation, contains no credit card rate cap. The bipartisan bills that did propose such a cap — introduced by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — were languishing in committee with single-digit chances of enactment. The administration neither introduced its own legislation nor championed the existing bills.

Meanwhile, the data tells an unambiguous story. The Federal Reserve’s G.19 report shows average credit card APRs of 20.97-22.80% in Q4 2025. Bankrate shows 19.58% as of March 2026. No bank has implemented a 10% cap. No bank has announced plans to do so. Americans with $1.28 trillion in credit card debt are paying interest rates that are more than double the figure the president claimed to have imposed.

The Bottom Line

This is one of the clearest false claims on the entire “365 wins” list. The president announced a credit card interest rate cap on social media, declared that noncompliance would violate the law, and then listed the announcement as an accomplishment — all without any law, executive order, or regulation existing to give the “direction” any legal force. The average credit card APR remains above 19%, no bank has complied, and the president lacks the constitutional authority to issue such a directive in the first place. Unlike many items on this list where the claim contains a kernel of truth wrapped in misleading framing, here there is no kernel. The claimed action did not happen, and the claimed relief was not delivered.

Footnotes

1. Federal Reserve Board of Governors, “Consumer Credit — G.19” (Q4 2025 data, accessed March 18, 2026), https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/current/; Bankrate, “Current Credit Card Interest Rates” (March 18, 2026), https://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/current-interest-rates/. ↩

2. PolitiFact, “Trump’s claim that credit card companies would be ‘in violation of the law’ if they don’t cap rates at 10%” (January 12, 2026), https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2026/jan/12/donald-trump/trump-credit-card-interest-rate-10-percent-law/; GovTrack, “H.R. 1 — One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (text search, accessed March 18, 2026), https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr1/text. ↩

3. PolitiFact (January 12, 2026), citing legal analysis by Ilya Somin (George Mason University) and Michael Gerhardt (University of North Carolina); Cornell Law Institute, 12 U.S.C. Section 85, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12/85. ↩

4. GovTrack, “S.381 — 10 Percent Credit Card Interest Rate Cap Act” (accessed March 18, 2026), https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/s381; GovTrack, “H.R. 1944 — 10 Percent Credit Card Interest Rate Cap Act” (accessed March 18, 2026), https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr1944; GovTrack, “S.2781 — Protecting Consumers from Unreasonable Credit Rates Act” (accessed March 18, 2026), https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/s2781. ↩

5. Bankrate (March 18, 2026); PolitiFact (January 12, 2026), citing industry opposition to rate caps. ↩

6. PolitiFact (January 12, 2026), documenting the January 9-11 timeline of Trump’s statements; White House, “365 Wins in 365 Days” (January 20, 2026). ↩

7. Cornell Law Institute, 12 U.S.C. Section 85; Marquette National Bank of Minneapolis v. First of Omaha Service Corp., 439 U.S. 299 (1978); Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. ↩

8. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, “Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit” (Q4 2025), https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc. ↩