The Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) on March 19 unanimously approved the final design for a commemorative 24-karat gold coin featuring an image of the president.
The non-circulating coin, part of a series of coins the U.S. Mint is planning to produce to celebrate America’s 250th birthday this year, features President Donald Trump, clad in a suit and tie, leaning over a desk. It is based on a photo by White House photographer Daniel Torok, displayed at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
Trump has already approved the design endorsement, and it is expected that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will order the coin to be minted.
U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said in a statement that there “is no profile more emblematic for the front of such coins than that of our serving President, Donald J. Trump.”
Lettering on the top half of the coin spells “LIBERTY” in an arc. Directly underneath are the dates 1776 and 2026. The words “IN GOD WE TRUST” are at the bottom, with seven stars on one side of the coin and six stars on the other side.
The reverse side depicts a bald eagle mid-flight with “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” on the right side and “E PLURIBUS UNUM” on the left side.
Chamberlain Harris, a White House aide whom Trump appointed to the commission this year, said the image is fitting.
“I know it’s a very strong and a 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,” Harris said.
The coin’s size and denomination have not been finalized.
People view the portrait of President Donald Trump, taken by official White House photographer Daniel Torok, which is the basis for U.S. Mint semiquincentennial commemorative coin design, on display at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington on March 19, 2026. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)Megan Sullivan, the acting chief of the Office of Design Management at the Mint, said the coin will be part of a “very limited production run.”
Some lawmakers were critical of the move.
“Monarchs and dictators put their faces on coins, not leaders of a democracy,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said in a statement. “Trump’s administration moving to put his face on a commemorative coin is his latest effort to distort the meaning of America’s 250th birthday.”
The Trump administration has also proposed a different, $1 coin featuring Trump’s image that would go into circulation this year.
Donald Scarinci, a member of the bipartisan Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, a separate federal panel that refused to consider the gold coin proposal last month, said the $1 coin would be in clear breach of a law that prohibits the image of a sitting or former president being on a circulating dollar coin until three years after their death.
Unlike the dollar coin, which would be in circulation, the gold coin is a non-circulating collector coin.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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