U.S. State department unveils new Passport featuring Trump's portrait

By TheStreet Roundtable

10 days ago

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Your dollar bills are getting his signature. Your national park pass already has his face. And now, your passport is next.

The U.S. State Department is finalizing plans to place President Donald Trump's portrait on new American passports, first reported Tuesday by The Bulwark and Fox News Digital.

The redesigned passport features Trump's image on the inside cover, surrounded by the text of the Declaration of Independence, an American flag, and the president's signature rendered in gold.

A second page features the famous painting of the Founding Fathers at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Illustration of a proposed U.S. passport design featuring President Donald Trump’s portrait.

The State Department confirmed the new designs to Newsweek on Tuesday.

"As the United States celebrates America's 250th anniversary in July, the State Department is preparing to release a limited number of specially designed U.S. Passports to commemorate this historic occasion," a State Department spokesperson said. "These passports will feature customized artwork and enhanced imagery while maintaining the same security features that make the U.S. Passport the most secure documents in the world."

The initial run is limited to 25,000 passports, available only at the Washington Passport Agency. To put that number in context, the U.S. processed over 23 million passport applications last year.

No country has done this

No modern U.S. passport has ever featured the image of a sitting president. And according to passport historians at Georgetown University, no foreign passport has featured the head of state of any country, ever.

The current passport, redesigned in 2021, features Francis Scott Key observing the bombardment of Fort McHenry on the inside cover, with closing lines from "The Star-Spangled Banner." The back cover shows the Earth, the Moon, and the Voyager spacecraft, alongside a quote from 19th-century author Anna Julia Cooper. The only presidential imagery in the current design is a depiction of Mount Rushmore.

The Trump redesign replaces all of that with a portrait of the sitting president.

The passport is part of something bigger

The passport redesign is the latest in a series of steps the Trump administration has taken to place the president's image on official U.S. government-issued documents, currency, and identification — all under the umbrella of America's 250th anniversary celebration.

In March, the Treasury Department announced that Trump's signature would appear on all future U.S. paper currency — a first for a sitting president. Since 1914, dollar bills have carried only the signatures of the Treasury Secretary and the U.S. Treasurer. Trump's name will replace the Treasurer's, appearing alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's.

In the same month, the Commission of Fine Arts approved a 24-karat commemorative gold coin bearing Trump's image in the Oval Office, with a face value of $250. A separate Trump $1 coin for general circulation is also under review at the U.S. Mint, authorized under the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020.

And then there is the national park pass. The Interior Department redesigned the 2026 America the Beautiful pass to feature side-by-side portraits of George Washington and Trump, replacing the nature photography that had appeared on the pass for years. The move prompted a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity, which argued the design violated a federal law requiring the pass to display a winning photo from a national parks contest. Visitors who covered Trump's face with stickers had their passes voided by the Park Service.

Taken together, the president's face is now on the national park pass, his signature is on the dollar, a gold coin with his portrait is in production, and the passport is next in line.

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The legal question nobody has answered

There is an interesting wrinkle here that has not received enough attention.

Federal law — specifically 18 U.S.C. § 475 — makes it illegal to use a likeness of a living president on postage stamps. The law was designed to prevent exactly this kind of thing, a sitting leader placing his image on an official government document that millions of Americans carry.

Passports are not stamps. The law does not explicitly cover them.

The Treasury Department has argued that putting Trump's signature on currency does not require congressional approval because changing signatures is a routine administrative decision that happens with every new administration. The State Department appears to be taking a similar approach with the passport: calling it a commemorative design for the 250th anniversary rather than a permanent change.

Whether the initial run stays at 25,000 or expands remains to be seen. The State Department said the passports will be available "for as long as there is availability" — language that leaves room for more.

What the 250th anniversary is actually about

The Semiquincentennial — America's 250th birthday — falls on July 4, 2026. Congress established the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission in 2016 to plan the commemoration, originally envisioned as a celebration of the nation's founding, its democratic institutions, and its history.

The Trump administration has used the anniversary as the legal and rhetorical framework for each of these branding decisions. The gold coin, the signature on currency, the park pass, and now the passport are all officially tied to "America250."

Critics see something else entirely. "Megalomaniac" was The Mirror's word for the passport move. The New Republic ran the headline: "Trump Prepares to Put His Face on Every U.S. Passport." Raw Story focused on the expression — "Scowling Trump face soon to appear on US passports."

Supporters, meanwhile, see a president honoring the country he leads. Fox News Digital described the designs as a "bold new design for America250 passports" and noted the inclusion of the Declaration of Independence and Founding Fathers alongside Trump's portrait.

The passports are expected to launch in July, timed to the anniversary. The State Department has not confirmed a final approval date. What it has confirmed is that this is happening, and that 25,000 Americans are about to carry a document with the sitting president's face inside it through customs, border checkpoints, and foreign airports around the world.