US credit cards can pay higher rewards because the US doesn't control the card providers' fees. Here in Europe we put strict restrictions on how much Visa and MasterCard are allowed to charge for the transactions. Consequently our merchants pay a much lower rate than what an American counterpart pays. This is not good for those of us who wants high rewards but Europe is more small business focused nowadays than the US (that's why most EU states has a significantly lower tax rate for entrepreneurs, ie. as low as flat 5%). I think we shouldn't talk about politics here but at least now you got someone who understands that you have a $20+ trillion debt and an almost $1 trillion annual budget deficit that will bump up your current debt to over $30 trillion in less than a decade. His personality is none of my business but here in Europe sometimes we're wondering whether anyone on the other side of the ocean understands that one day you have to pay all this back.