MARCH 13, 2025
Trump Treasury Expands Financial Surveillance
By Nicholas Anthony
More than one million Americans are about to face a new level of financial
surveillance. The Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network (FinCEN) announced that the threshold for currency transaction
reports has been lowered from $10,000 to $200 for Americans living in 30 zip
codes in California and Texas. Financial surveillance in the United States has
long needed reform, but this move is in the wrong direction.
FinCEN officially announced the temporary policy change as an effort “to
further combat the illicit activities and money laundering of Mexico-based
cartels and other criminal actors along the southwest border of the United
States.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “As part of a whole-of-
government approach to combatting the threat, [the] Treasury remains focused
on leveraging all our available tools and authorities to better identify and
counter these criminal activities.”
While this announcement is disappointing, it is not surprising. Alex Nowrasteh,
the Cato Institute’s vice president for economic and social policy studies,
warned people in February that President Trump’s decision to designate cartels
as terrorists could have repercussions for civil liberties and the economy at
large. Specifically, Nowrasteh noted that the designation would allow the
government to freeze assets, enact secondary sanctions, and take greater
control of the financial system generally.
What makes this announcement especially troubling is that the $10,000
threshold for currency transaction reports is long overdue for reform. At the
very least, many people agree that the amount should be adjusted for inflation.
Whether you base that adjustment on the reporting done under the Trading
with the Enemy Act in 1945, the enactment of the Bank Secrecy Act in 1970, or
the Treasury’s regulation of currency transaction reports in 1972, it’s clear that
this reporting regime has gotten out of hand (Figure 1).
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