Donald Trump may scrap plans to put black abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill
The switch was favoured by the Obama administration
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Your support makes all the difference.The US Treasury Department may not end up putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill after all.
Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, said that he’s not putting a lot of thought into whether to replace Andrew Jackson with Tubman, a break from his predecessor during the Barack Obama administration.
“The No 1 issue why we change the currency is to stop counterfeiting. So the issues of what we change will be primarily related to what we need to do for security purposes. I’ve received classified briefings on that. And, that’s what I’m focused on for the moment,” Mr Mnuchin told CNBC when asked about Tubman.
Mr Mnuchin cast the issue as something of a distraction, indicating that he’s comfortable with the current team of American leaders on US currency. His main objective for any changes to bills is to make sure that it makes it harder for counterfeiters to make the currency.
“People have been on the bills for a long period of time. And this is something we will consider. Right now, we’ve got a lot more important issues to focus on,” he said.
Tubman was chosen by former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew last year, but the future of the change up became immediately unclear once Mr Trump was elected in November. The Obama administration rushed to put together prototypes of the bills, hoping to get far enough along in the process to deter the Trump administration from pulling back, but that effort appears to have fallen short of success.
The effort to get Tubman on the $20 bill followed outrage from an American public that noted that American currency only featured white men, and was lacking a diverse representation of individuals who have contributed to the American legacy.
Tubman is a revered figure in American history, known for escaping slavery and helping at least 70 others escape enslavement themselves by leading them along the so-called underground railroad north to states in America that had individually abolished slavery.
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