Economist tallies what Trump’s war is costing you — and delivers a stark warning

A prominent economist has calculated the overall cost of President Donald Trump’s Iran war on American consumers, boiled it down to how much it is costing each U.S. household, and is issuing a warning on the economy.

Dr. Mark Zandi is the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics and the co-founder of Economy.com. He puts the total cost of Trump’s war at $100 billion — a conservative estimate to some — which amounts to about $750 per household so far.

That $100 billion includes “the additional U.S. military costs and the higher energy and other prices resulting from the war,” says Zandi, who calls it a “big economic blow.”

Last week, Zandi told CNBC that if prices stay roughly the same, and the war drags on to a full year, the total cost will jump to about $2,000 for each U.S. household.

He warns that while Trump’s “deficit-financed tax cuts have cushioned it” so far, as of the middle of last month, “the bigger tax refunds Americans have received this year no longer cover the higher costs of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel caused by the war.”

Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, on May 19 reported that “Americans will be spending $2 billion more on gasoline over the four day Memorial Day weekend compared to a year ago, according to GasBuddy estimates, or roughly $22 million more every hour.”

Looking at the “hard-pressed middle and lower-income households,” Zandi found that the financial pressure is “mounting quickly.”

He notes that the U.S. consumer’s savings rate is now “about as low as it ever goes,” and warns that “unless the war ends soon and energy prices come down,” Americans “will have little choice but to rein in their spending, weighing further on the already sagging economy.”

Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, told CNBC that consumers “are increasingly facing an income squeeze, which is forcing them to use savings, credit and wealth to sustain their spending patterns.”

The Trump White House over the weekend offered a different take.

Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters that “People are spending more on gas, but they’re also spending more on everything else — not just groceries, but restaurants and so on,” MS NOW reported. “I think that that’s a sign that you would see when people are optimistic about the future.”