Black abolitionist Harriet Tubman was set to replace President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill under a 2016 decision by the Obama administration.
However, the Trump administration signaled on Thursday that Tubman may not replace Jackson after all.
According to the New York Times, “Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin declined to endorse the plan for a 2020 redesign of the $20 bill that was announced by the Obama administration last year.”
“People have been on the bills for a long period of time,” Mnuchin told CNBC. “This is something we’ll consider. Right now we’ve got a lot more important issues to focus on.”
Trump made it clear as a presidential candidate that he opposed the proposal to replace Jackson.
“I would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can maybe come up with another denomination,” he said in April 2016, after the decision was announced.
At the time, Trump suggested the $2 bill for Tubman, as it reportedly “circulates in the smallest volume of any bill, about seven times less than the $20.”
“I think it would be more appropriate,” he said.
As reported by the NY Times, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew announced that Jackson would move to the back of the $20 bill. He also said images of women would be added to the back of the $5 and $10 bills. The plan is to unveil the final designs in 2020.
Trump has not addressed the issue since becoming president but he did put a portrait of Jackson in the Oval Office.
Andrew Jackson is still celebrated as one of the founding fathers of the Democratic Party. He also orchestrated the removal of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands to the east of the Mississippi River, forcing them on the long march West known as the “Trail of Tears.”
Jackson also strongly opposed the use of paper money.
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