Trump's Iran war costs way more than he's saying: experts

President Donald Trump is costing Americans billions more than his downplaying would lead the public to believe, a think tank recently found — and this will directly impact millions of Americans.

“The war also comes at a significant financial cost to the American taxpayer,” the Center for American Progress wrote in a recent report. “In a March 2 press conference, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine provided a glimpse into the nature of operations thus far in Operation Epic Fury. Caine described the deployment of more than 100 aircraft, the use of Tomahawk missiles, and attacks on more than 1,000 targets in just the first day of operations.”

Citing former Pentagon official Elaine McCusker, the Center for American Progress added that the cost of repositioning Middle East forces prior to the Iran war was roughly $630 million; the think tank added that “a conservative estimate for the initial costs of Operation Epic Fury is more than $5 billion as of March 2—and the campaign is just getting started.”

Perhaps more notably, the think tank estimated that “at the current scale of operations, a three-week war could easily exceed tens of billions of dollars in expenses.” Although the think tank did not specify this, it stands to reason that if the war spans beyond three weeks, the cost will eventually reach tens of billions.

“These costs come at a time when American citizens are acutely feeling the pressures of increased prices at home, including housing, energy, and health care costs,” the Center for American Progress wrote. “They also coincide with efforts by the Trump administration to encourage the Republican-led Congress to enact cruel and dangerous austerity measures, slashing health care and food assistance spending while seeking continuous—and often unjustifiable—increases in the Pentagon budget.” Citing specific examples, the think pointed out that “priced at around $2.2 million, a single Tomahawk missile could cover 775 children on Medicaid for a year or provide more than 3,600 children with meals in the National School Lunch Program.

At more than $5 billion and counting, the costs of Operation Epic Fury—in only its first few days of operations—could cover Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for more than 2 million Americans for a year. If this war continues at the same pace, Americans could see their government burn through tens of billions of dollars, funds that would amount to the cost of Medicaid for millions in the United States.”

This is not the first analysis to contextualize Trump’s Iran war as harming American citizens financially.

"Linda Bilmes of Harvard's Kennedy School estimates that Trump's largely unsuccessful bombing campaign last year against the Iran-backed Islamist Houthis in Yemen — a far softer target than Iran itself — cost between $2.76 billion and $4.95 billion," economist Paul Krugman wrote for The New York Times. "Operation Midnight Hammer, Trump's one-day strike against suspected Iranian nuclear facilities, cost between $2.04 billion and $2.26 billion. The current war is being waged not only with massive bombing, but also, with the use of large numbers of expensive interceptors to defend U.S. bases and U.S. allies against Iranian drones and missiles."

Krugman continued, "So in just a few days, we have surely incurred billions of dollars in cost. And if this war continues for an extended period, the costs could easily rise to the 20-to-30-billion-dollar range."

Former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois pointed out last week on his Substack that Trump voters, who said they wanted fewer wars, act like they are in a “cult” by continuing to support him despite his warmongering.

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh argued. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Despite Trump’s actions against Denmark, Venezuela and Iran, MAGA largely still supports the president.

“And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters?” Walsh said. “What else are people to think when you voted for Trump to get us the hell out of wars around the world, and instead he gets us involved in wars around the world and starts new wars, and you still sing his praises and support him? What are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”

Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host who is a prominent critical of Israel, accused Trump of being manipulated by Israel, arguing “this happened because Israel wanted it to happen. This is Israel’s war.” Perhaps to absolve Trump of responsibility, Carlson speculated that he may have been duped by inaccurate intelligence. “Maybe it doesn’t show that, because this country has certainly been manipulated a lot by Israeli intelligence—and other foreign countries’ intelligence, but certainly by Israeli intelligence,” Carlson said.