"Everything's On The Table": JPM CFO Signals Possible Fight With Trump Over Credit Card Rate Cap
Wall Street has benefited greatly from the Trump administration's economic policies and "Make America Great Again" agenda and has largely been supportive of the president. That relationship abruptly fractured last Friday when the president called for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10%.
All it took was President Trump's Truth Social post prioritizing working-class Americans over Wall Street, in which the president said, "AFFORDABILITY! Effective January 20, 2026, I, as President of the United States, am calling for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates of 10%," to put big bank CEOs on notice, with some now preparing to mount a fight against the White House.
Two months later... https://t.co/POf3Y4jlrq pic.twitter.com/D4BlY4PD1i
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 10, 2026
Leading that charge appears to be JPMorgan Chase CFO Jeremy Barnum, who signaled during an earnings call on Tuesday that banks could challenge Trump's move to cap credit card interest rates for a year.
"If you wind up with weakly supported directives to radically change our business that aren't justified, you have to assume that everything's on the table," Barnum told analysts following JPMorgan's fourth-quarter earnings report (read here). "We owe that to shareholders."
Barnum argued that a rate cap would backfire by shrinking credit availability rather than lowering borrowing costs, ultimately hurting consumers, spending, and the broader economy. His warning echoed concerns raised earlier this week by UBS analysts Erika Najarian and Tim Chiodo.
"Our belief is that actions like this will have the exact opposite consequence to what the administration wants for consumers," Barnum said. "Instead of lowering the price of credit, we'll simply reduce the supply of credit, and that will be bad for everyone: consumers, the wider economy, and yes, at the margin, for us."
Additional color via X user The Transcript ...
$JPM CFO warns that capping credit card interest rates could "severely reduce access to credit, especially for those who need it most."
— The Transcript (@TheTranscript_) January 13, 2026
Also says that it would be "severely negative consequences for consumers....for the economy" and "obviously be bad for us as well." https://t.co/dWyY2Blgut pic.twitter.com/cmAGD4zaGg
The average U.S. credit card APR is about 20%, according to the latest data from Bankrate. Rates are much higher for subprime and store cards.
A stalled bill proposed by Josh Hawley and Bernie Sanders would have imposed a 10% cap for 5 years, versus Trump's 1-year cap. Consumer-heavy industries beyond banking warned of ripple effects of less credit in the system, such as Delta Air Lines.
House Speaker Mike Johnson urged caution, warning that efforts to lower costs could have unintended consequences: "We have a lot of work to go [on] consensus around it, but you got to be very careful as we go forward in that in our zeal to bring down costs ... you don't want to have negative secondary effects."
Read more about why UBS analysts say Trump's 10% one-year cap on credit card interest rates is "unlikely" here.
Trump's incoming fight with big banks on capping credit card rates is not unexpected given his administration's massive push for affordability this year.