One year on from Donald Trump’s resounding return to the White House on Jan. 20, 2025, America is once again a stage for bold experiments in governance. His second term, unlike the turbulent “organized chaos” of his first, which was plagued by travel bans, trade skirmishes and endless media battles, has zeroed in on the raw nerve of everyday economic pain.
No issue captures this shift more vividly than an audacious plan announced by Trump last week: a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at just 10 percent. Champions call it “credit fairness,” a shield for the working class against predatory lenders. Critics, especially from Wall Street’s towering banks, brand it an economic apocalypse, warning it could choke off credit and spark a recession.
As the Jan. 20 deadline echoing Trump’s inauguration draws near, the question hangs heavy: Is this populist stroke a path to justice for millions drowning in debt or a reckless swing that severs the lifeline of US prosperity?
“At its core, Trump’s push stems from a fierce condemnation of how credit card giants prey on ordinary Americans”
Dr. Turki Faisal Al-Rasheed
At its core, Trump’s push stems from a fierce condemnation of how credit card giants prey on ordinary Americans. Through fiery posts on Truth Social, his go-to digital bullhorn, Trump has railed against rates that often climb as high as 30 percent. “No more letting big banks fleece the American people,” he thundered, painting these fees as a brutal tax on families already reeling from inflation and flat wages.
Today, the average annual percentage rate for interest-bearing credit cards sits at 22.3 percent, up from pre-pandemic levels as economic strains bite harder. For countless households, this means thousands of dollars in extra costs each year on basics: groceries during lean months, doctor visits after unexpected illnesses or car repairs to keep a commuting job alive. Trump’s fix is direct and defiant: enforce a 10 percent freeze for one year via executive order if Congress drags its feet, with full compliance by the anniversary of his inauguration.
This is not just policy, it is a calculated psychological offensive, say experts, meant to bully banks into line through public outrage and threats of crackdowns. By labeling noncompliance “violations” and dangling massive fines under emergency powers, Trump casts himself as a champion of the debt-weary masses. His words strike a chord in a nation where total personal debt has swelled to $18.5 trillion, with credit card balances topping $1.2 trillion in 2025. For the average family juggling mortgage, student loan and car payments, that debt feels like a noose tightening with every statement.
But to Wall Street’s power brokers, the proposal is an unfolding nightmare. Leaders from behemoths like JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have closed ranks, sounding alarms of catastrophe. Their fear boils down to a simple truth: credit card rates are not greedy grabs but finely tuned tools for handling risk. These are unsecured loans, with no house or car as backup, leaving banks exposed to defaults, which hit 3 percent to 5 percent of accounts yearly.
Lenders build in buffers for everything from borrowing costs and daily operations to those inevitable bad debts, they argue. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan laid it bare. “This would mean tighter credit and lower limits,” he said, a move that could slam the door on emergency funds just when people face layoffs or health scares.
The fallout would not stop at personal accounts. Niche players like Capital One and Synchrony Financial, which pull 90 percent of their income from card interest and fees, could see profits vaporize. To survive, they would likely jack up annual fees or sneaky admin charges, wiping out any gains for borrowers.
Zoom out and the damage scales up: consumer spending drives 70 percent of US gross domestic product, with credit cards greasing the wheels for everything from weekend splurges to big-ticket buys on layaway. A credit crunch here, amid stubborn 3 percent to 4 percent inflation, risks stalling growth and nudging the economy into recession. Trump’s allies brush this off as growing pains. The cap, they say, would puncture the $1 trillion debt balloon on controlled terms, dodging a messier explosion like the 2008 financial crash that scared the globe.
Yet the real fireworks might erupt in courtrooms, where legal eagles predict a marathon brawl. Presidents wield wide emergency tools under laws like the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, but capping usury rates has long been Congress’ turf, baked into rules like the Truth in Lending Act. The American Bankers Association is geared up to slap down lawsuits, crying “unconstitutional theft” of profits under the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections.
Judges, ever cautious of White House oversteps, might slap on restraining orders before the ink dries, dragging out the drama. Insiders whisper that Trump’s true play is not brute force but high stakes haggling, using the threat to wring out bank concessions like voluntary rate cuts or fee rollbacks in return for dropping the hammer. It is classic Trump: mix menace with horse-trading to score wins that play well with voters eyeing their wallets before the 2026 midterms.
To truly unpack this showdown, we must step back and confront the deeper sickness of “savage capitalism” — a beast that, after pillaging the world through resource grabs, forced austerity and sparked proxy wars, now turns on its own children. The West, once the high priest of free-market gospel, has twisted human potential into a caricature. Think of Abraham Maslow’s famous pyramid of needs, that 1940s blueprint from psychology: it climbs from survival basics such as food and shelter to safety nets, social bonds, self-respect and, ultimately, self-fulfillment. Societies once aimed to scale that ladder, rung by rung, fostering lives of purpose.
But endless consumerism has flipped the script. “Buy now, pay later” lures people into a hamster wheel of debt, flattening Maslow’s tiers into a frantic scramble at the base. Credit cards embody this devil’s deal: a rush of instant joy traded for chains of repayment that span decades.
Oxfam’s damning 2023 analysis laid bare the injustice, with the planet’s top 1 percent vacuuming up $26 trillion of the $42 trillion in new wealth since 2020, leaving scraps for the rest. Fast forward to November 2025 and an Oxfam US snapshot showed the richest 1 percent piled up wealth 987 times faster per household than the poorest 20 percent between 1989 and 2022. It is a gulf so wide that essentials slip through the fingers of most. Central banks’ “cure” of hiking base rates to tame inflation only fattens credit costs, echoing the bitter medicine once shoved down the throats of the Global South: loan conditionalities that starved people to feed lenders.
From the Arab world’s vantage point, this has bitter symmetry. Countries like Saudi Arabia, steering Vision 2030 away from oil’s shadow, pour energy into fair finance and debt forgiveness for the needy and growth that lifts all boats. We in the Gulf have tasted the West’s exports of excess: a shopping frenzy that gutted heartlands, from America’s rusting factory towns to Europe’s underpaid hustlers in the gig economy.
This feels like a pivot point, the gasp of a fading superpower as it gives way to a shared global stage, in which BRICS pacts and the Gulf investment giants chip away at the dollar’s debt empire. Trump’s cap, though aimed inward, throws a spotlight on the rot: “free markets” often spell liberty for elites to harvest the rest.
So, as Jan. 20 looms, will Trump etch a win for the weary or gamble away the system’s spark? If navigated wisely, this could burst the debt myth, freeing a cohort from servitude to chase Maslow’s loftier goals of family, creativity and legacy. In my circles, debt-free Americans are rarer than honest politicians; too many twentysomethings squander their peak years on interest traps, their dreams on indefinite hold.
“You can stretch your legs only as far as the blanket allows”
Dr. Turki Faisal Al-Rasheed
The Arab street, woven into America’s economic web through trade and bonds, holds its breath. A steady US bolsters our partnerships, while chaos ripples to oil prices and investment flows. In slaying Wall Street’s fire-breathers, Trump might birth a fairer America or rouse a monster that feasts on us all. The inauguration bell tolls: justice or jeopardy? The world, and the wallet, awaits.
Trump’s Debt Revolution: Can a 10% Credit Cap Save America from Savage Capitalism? (Video Overview)
Trump’s Debt Revolution: Can a 10% Credit Cap Save America from Savage Capitalism? (Audio Overview)
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