Featuring Trump on U.S. coins, bills would put America in rare company

(By Jacques Hymans for the Conversation)

A slang term for cash money is “dead presidents.” But now the very much alive President Donald Trump could appear on U.S. coins and banknotes, too.

Ever since Trump returned to power in 2025, his administration has put the president’s face and name on all sorts of things, from federal buildings to national park passes. Putting him on the almighty dollar would be the crowning achievement of these efforts. After all, the value of physical U.S. currency in circulation today stands at over USD 2.46 trillion, an all-time high.

If a sitting president’s portraits start appearing on U.S. currency, what would this change say about American political culture?

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he doesn’t “think that there’s anything untoward” about the idea, while Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley has said, “President Trump’s self-celebrating manoeuvres are authoritarian actions worthy of dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.”

As a professor of international relations who has studied the global evolution of currency iconography for over 20 years, I take a worldwide perspective on this debate. The data that I have amassed shows that such a choice by the U.S would be out of step with nearly every other currency in the world.

All about the Benjamins - or the Donalds?

The Trump administration has been incredibly active on the currency front.

In January 2026, Trump’s handpicked commissioners of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a federal agency that advises on design and aesthetics, recommended designs for a circulating USD 1 coin featuring Trump’s head. The commission later also recommended a different portrayal of Trump for a 24-karat gold commemorative coin that it suggested making “as large as possible.” These coins were supposed to be ready for July 4, but production delays at the U.S. Mint have pushed the release date back.

The administration is also preparing Trump-branded banknotes. In March 2026, the U.S Department of the Treasury announced a historic first: From now on, the president’s signature will be on newly printed paper dollars.

In April, the Treasury Department abruptly reassigned the director of its Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Patricia Solimene, after she had refused to advance a USD 250 bill with Trump’s face on it, according to The Washington Post.

“The buck stopped here,” Solimene wrote in a goodbye email to colleagues. But after her reassignment, the buck started again. In May, Bessent publicly displayed a USD 250 bill design featuring Trump -- even while acknowledging that the new bills cannot be printed until Congress changes the 160-year-old law against depicting living persons on U.S paper currency.

The Donald J. Trump USD 250 Bill Act, a measure to amend the law, is awaiting further congressional action in the House Committee on Financial Services. Treasury claims it already has the legal authority to mint its Trump coins.

Examining the world’s coins

Putting the sitting president’s face on coins would be a dramatic departure from U.S tradition. The only previous such instance in the country’s history was a 1926 commemorative half-dollar showing then-President Calvin Coolidge alongside George Washington.

But what about other countries in the contemporary world? How normal is it for their sitting leaders to appear on their coins?

Using the most recent edition of Coin & Mint News’ Directory of Circulating Coins -- a standard reference for coin professionals working at national mints and central banks -- I counted the images of sitting state leaders on the circulating coins of the world as of 2024. (Note: This data has not yet gone through rigorous peer review.)

Analysing nearly 1,000 coins from 165 independent countries, I counted only 22 countries -- about 13% of the total -- whose circulating coins feature their sitting head of state. This number includes coins depicting heads of state who were in office when the coin was originally issued, whether or not they were still there in 2024.

Almost all the sitting heads of state who appear on the circulating coins that I analysed are hereditary monarchs.

If a country is a hereditary monarchy -- whether its political system is democratic, like the United Kingdom, or authoritarian, like Brunei -- there is a high chance that its reigning king or queen is on its circulating coins. This is the case for about 62 per cent of the monarchies in my database, or 21 out of 34.

On the other hand, if a country is not a hereditary monarchy, its sitting head of state is almost certainly not on its circulating coins. This is the case for 99 per cent of the non-monarchy countries in my database, or 130 out of 131.

The lone exception is Samoa, a parliamentary democracy whose circulating coins all feature the country’s head of state as of 2011, the coins’ original year of issuance. However, even Samoa is hardly an exception, as its political culture has many of the trappings of a monarchy: Its head of state is called “His Highness,” and he is traditionally chosen from among the country’s four paramount chieftains.

Examining the world’s banknotes

A similar story emerges from my data on banknotes.

Using Bank Note Museum -- a free online catalogue crowdsourced from a network of banknote collectors -- and supplementing that data with information from Greysheet publications’ paywalled catalogue The Banknote Book, I created a database of all the circulating banknotes in the world that were newly designed and issued between 2019 and 2024.

According to my data, 84 independent countries issued 340 new regular circulating banknotes during the chosen time frame. Yet only 13 of those countries -- about 15 per cent -- issued new banknotes depicting their sitting head of state. All but one of the 13 countries that did so are hereditary monarchies.

The lone exception to the rule is Botswana, a democratic republic that has traditionally featured the sitting president’s portrait on its 10 pula banknote denomination. However, Duma Boko, Botswana’s president since late 2024, is still waiting for his 10 pula note.

U.S. currency: Fit for a king? 

Today, almost every country that isn’t a hereditary monarchy is declining to issue currency that features its sitting head of state. Since the U.S isn’t a hereditary monarchy, putting Trump’s face on U.S currency while he is still in office would be highly abnormal.

The nationwide “No Kings” protest movement has mobilised millions of Americans to march the streets in opposition to what they perceive as Trump’s monarchical ambitions. The global patterns of currency iconography suggest that they might have a point.

 

(Jacques Hymans is Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences; University of Southern California)