The cost of Trump's Iran war: $5 billion and counting

A new report has found that President Trump’s illegal and unprovoked war against Iran has now cost American taxpayers upwards of $5 billion and counting.

Citing costs associated with Trump’s attack on Iran last June, as well as American-led strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen as part of Israel’s war on Gaza, in addition to regional buildup costs and the tab for lost military equipment so far, the report, published by the Center for American Progress, concludes 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.”

Quincy Institute defense budget expert Ben Freeman agrees that CAP's estimate is conservative. "Even that $5 billion estimate is very likely an undercount. For example, it doesn't include the cost of the $1.1 billion U.S. radar system Iran has allegedly destroyed in Qatar. It also doesn't include the cost of all the U.S. missile interceptors used in the conflict," he told RS.

Other newly released estimates vary by focus and variables. For example, the Institute for Policy Studies and the National Priorities Project concluded this week that the costs of operating two aircraft carrier groups, related naval support, and more than 200 military aircraft to be nearly $60 million per day.

Another widely shared tracker that is based on official data and news reports gathered and analyzed by artificial intelligence has the running tally at nearly $2.5 billion as of this writing (the site’s creator has paused its operations “to ensure all cost data and updates are fully accurate”).

Trump’s war is already underwater in terms of domestic support. Polling conducted just after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday found widespread disapproval, with one survey by Reuters/Ipsos finding that support among Republicans could fall once U.S. troops start getting killed and gas prices start rising (both of which are already happening).

Chris Preble, senior fellow and director of the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center, told RS that the American people shouldn’t have to rely on unofficial estimates.

“The Trump administration has an obligation to communicate to the American people what this war is costing,” he told RS. “The disdain shown for Congress (and the American people) by this administration is nothing short of breathtaking.”

Freeman adds that the cost of Patriot missiles alone should give Americans pause as to just how much this conflict will cost. "Those missiles cost around $4 million, for example. And, there's reporting that up to 11 of those have been used to intercept a single Iranian missile. That's $44 million in taxpayer dollars for just one Iranian missile and we've already intercepted hundreds of Iranian missiles," he said. "So, when all the dust settles, I have no doubt that the cost of this war will be well above $10 billion, and perhaps much higher than that if the conflict drags on."

Indeed, projected costs of the war are likely be much higher as the Defense Department is reportedly working on a request for upwards of $50 billion in emergency spending to replace munitions used and equipment lost so far in the conflict.

President George W. Bush used a similar process of “emergency” funding to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan outside of Congress’s regular appropriations. Experts began referring to that funding — called the Overseas Contingency Operations budget, or OCO — as a “slush fund” for pet military projects or other programs having nothing to do with war funding.

At one point, OCO funding was larger than the budgets of all federal agencies except the Pentagon, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Veterans Affairs Administration. By the time the OCO account was officially shut down (in 2021 by the Biden administration), Congress had allocated more than $2 trillion to it without the same oversight requirements as the regular DOD budget.

“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 CAP report notes. “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.”