Trump to Appear on Commemorative Gold Coin, Breaking Tradition

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Mar 20, 2026 9:45 AM CUT

Part of the design for the Trump commemorative gold coin approved by the Commission of Fine Arts.

Part of the design for the Trump commemorative gold coin approved by the Commission of Fine Arts.Commission of Fine Arts/U.S. Treasury

Miranda Jeyaretnam

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Miranda Jeyaretnam

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Mar 20, 2026 9:45 AM CUT

President Donald Trump—who has at times leaned into monarchical imagery and drawn scrutiny for what critics have called a “neo-imperialist” policy towards countries like Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba—will soon be the face of a commemorative, 24-karat gold coin, which runs counter to long-standing caution among America’s founding fathers about placing living leaders on official currency.

Read More: What the Founding Fathers Said About Kings

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were appointed by Trump, voted unanimously on Thursday to approve the design, which depicts Trump leaning over a desk with clenched fists. The design appears to reproduce a photograph of Trump that was hung in the National Portrait Gallery in D.C. in January. The back of the coin depicts a bald eagle. The coin is meant to commemorate the nation’s semiquincentennial anniversary, for which the Trump Administration has also planned a slate of events.

“As we approach our 250th birthday, we are thrilled to prepare coins that represent the enduring spirit of our country and democracy, and there is no profile more emblematic for the front of such coins than that of our serving President, Donald J. Trump,” U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said in a statement to news outlets on Thursday.

The Trump Administration is planning to mint at least two other smaller coins with Trump’s face on their front. One, a $1 coin, will circulate as currency, according to the New York Times. The other will be a collectible coin made from an ounce of 24-karat gold and marked with a face value of $250, the Times reported. 

The coins have faced objections from some who say that depicting a living government official on currency would appear to elevate them like kings, something that the nation’s founders fiercely opposed.

“Anyone with an understanding of history and numismatics knows that the declaration of independence was our founder’s statement for cutting the ties between the colonies and the king,” Donald Scarinci, member of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, said during the committee’s public meeting last month. “For 250 years since that great document was signed with a few controversial exceptions, no nation on Earth has issued coins with the image of a democratically elected leader during the time of their service.”

“Only those nations ruled by kings or dictators display the image of their sitting ruler on the coins of the realm,” Scarinci added.

The CCAC, an 11-member federal advisory body established in 2003, is statutorily required to review themes and designs of coins. The U.S. Mint had at the last minute added discussion of the gold coin to the CCAC’s Feb. 24 agenda, but the committee declined to review the coin. A recording of the meeting, which included Scarinci’s comments, appeared to have been removed from the CCAC’s website and has yet to be restored, despite Scarinci’s reported requests to the Mint. The CCAC next meets in April.

TIME has reached out to the CCAC, the CFA, the Treasury Department, and the White House for comment.

U.S. treasurer Brandon Beach said in a statement to the Times on Thursday that the CCAC “had multiple reasonable opportunities to review the proposed designs” but “expressly declined.”

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“Accordingly, the Mint’s statutory obligation to seek CCAC review has been fulfilled,” Beach said.

Scarinci, however, told the Times that without CCAC review, “the coins are illegal.”

“Because this is what kings and dictators do and there’s no getting around that,” Scarinci said. “This is a democracy, not a monarchy, not a dictatorship. And democracies do not put their elected leaders on coins.”

Last year, Trump fired the entire board of the CFA and appointed his own picks to the board.

Trump has made other changes to cultural and design policy to remake the White House and federal buildings to his tastes. He has closed the Kennedy Center (rebranded as the Trump-Kennedy Center) for a two-year renovation project, demolished the East Wing of the White House in order to construct a $250 million grand ballroom, revealed plans to build a triumphal arch that has been dubbed ‘Arc de Trump,’ and early into his second term signed an executive order directing that new federal buildings be made in “classical” architectural styles. The White House has also conducted an expansive review of exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution and removed federal funding from several arts institutions.

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Federal law also prohibits the depiction of a living President on U.S. currency. According to the Thayer Amendment of 1866, “Only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities.”

Few people have been featured on U.S. currency while alive, and they mostly came before norms around paper money were firmly established, including the Thayer Amendment. They included Salmon P. Chase, Treasury Secretary under former President Abraham Lincoln, who appeared on the first $1 notes; Francis E. Spinner, former U.S. Treasurer appointed by Lincoln, who appeared on some temporary fractional currency in the 1860s, and Spencer M. Clark, the first superintendent of the National Currency Bureau in the 1860s, who put his own portrait on the 5-cent fractional note. The last case caused so much outrage that it led to the 1866 Congressional ban on featuring living people on U.S. currency.

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But the Trump Administration has argued that the Treasury Secretary has the authority to authorize the minting and issuance of certain coins under two statutes: a provision of Section 5112 of Chapter 31 of the U.S. Code that allows the minting of gold coins with “specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations and inscriptions as the secretary, in the secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time,” and the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020 which temporarily empowers the Treasury Secretary to issue $1 coins “with designs emblematic of the United States semiquincentennial” for the year 2026.

Megan Sullivan, acting chief in the office of design management at the U.S. Mint, told the commission on Thursday that approval for the design was based on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s authority, not as part of the 2020 legislation for special semiquincentennial-themed coins.

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Sullivan also said that Trump has approved of the designs, which was a concern raised by some members of the commission. Chamberlain Harris, a member of the commission and deputy director of Oval Office Operations who served as Trump’s receptionist during his first term, said, “I know it’s a very strong and very tough image of him and I think it’s fitting to have a current sitting president who’s presiding over the country over the 250th year on a commemorative coin for said year.”

The size and face value of the coin has not yet been decided, Sullivan said. Commission members suggested the coin be made as big as possible and worth hundreds of dollars.

“I think the president likes big things,” James C. McCrery II, vice chairman of the commission, said.