The State Department is close to finalizing a radical redesign of the U.S. passport that would put President Donald Trump’s image on the document, according to photographs provided to The Bulwark. The new version is being pitched as part of the 250th anniversary of American independence, but it is still awaiting approval.
The proposal would break sharply with modern practice. No U.S. passport has featured a sitting president, and Edward Kolla said no foreign passport has ever featured the head of state of any country. American passports are issued in the name of the secretary of state, not the president, which makes the design an unusually direct break from the way the document has long presented federal authority.
The images show an inside cover with a scowling Trump superimposed over the Declaration of Independence, along with his signature in gold. The back cover would keep a more familiar patriotic image, using John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence painting instead of the presidential portrait. A government official provided color photographs of the redesign, and the State Department is planning a limited run of 25,000 Trump-emblazoned passports if the design clears approval.
The current passport design has been in use since 2021 and leans on historic American imagery rather than a living political figure. Its inside cover shows Francis Scott Key observing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814 and includes lines from “The Star-Spangled Banner,” while the back cover shows the Earth, the moon and the Voyager spacecraft with a quote from Anna Julia Cooper: “The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class—it is the cause of humankind.”
The passport effort appears to be part of a broader push to wrap Trump-themed objects in the language of the 250th anniversary. The Treasury Department is preparing coins featuring Trump’s image, including a controversial $1 coin in general circulation and an “as large as possible” commemorative gold coin, while the National Park Service is emblazoning Trump’s face on its park passes. The result is a deliberate shift from the familiar symbols of American history toward something far more personal, and far more political.
Kolla described the idea as “wacky,” a reaction that fits the central tension in the redesign: a travel document meant to represent the country is being recast around a single living leader. If approved, the Trump passport would not just mark a celebration year. It would set a precedent for how far the government is willing to personalize one of its most recognized documents.