The Trump administration says the first two months of America’s war with Iran cost taxpayers about $25 billion—but the real price tag for this undeclared, illegal war is much, much higher.
That official estimate was offered to members of Congress at an April 29 hearing, when acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst III said we were “spending about $25 billion on Operation Epic Fury.” He later elaborated that this number “reflects the munitions that have been spent to date and other operational costs.” In other words, it accounts for only the direct military costs of the conflict: the bombs dropped, missiles launched, and equipment destroyed.
That estimate is already nearly two weeks old, but it remains the administration’s most straightforward answer to one of the many open questions about the conflict. It also, obviously, leaves a lot out.
A better estimate comes from Stephen Semler, a journalist who co-founded the Security Policy Reform Institute. In a Substack post last week, Semler estimated that the war had cost nearly $72 billion in its first 60 days.
That estimate accounts for the cost of operations, weapons, damaged and destroyed U.S. military assets, and wartime subsidies to Israel.
“The $25 billion war cost given by Pentagon Secretary Hegseth and acting Comptroller Hurst before Congress was a lie,” Semler wrote. “It was a denial of the Iran War’s spiraling costs, one of several foreseen consequences of the Trump administration’s decision to go to war.”
Semler isn’t the only skeptic. In the long run, the “Iran war will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and very possibly trillions,” wrote University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers in an op-ed published Friday by The New York Times. Wolfers’ estimate goes beyond the military costs to include the rising price of oil, a likely increase in inflation, higher interest rates to combat inflation, and the slower economic growth that would result from all of that.
“If it takes a couple of years for the economy to return to normal, that slower growth rate would mean around $400 billion in lost income,” Wolfers concludes.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s estimate of direct military costs is likely lowballing even that total. In early April, the Penn Wharton Budget Model projected that two months of war with Iran would cost between $38 billion and $47 billion. Indeed, the cost had already exceeded $25 billion in the first 32 days of the war, according to that model.
It’s worth keeping in mind that the Trump administration asked Congress for $200 billion to cover the cost of the war in March.
The direct military and budgetary costs of the war—whatever they end up being—do not offer a comprehensive tally.
The economic cost of the war has already exceeded $37 billion, according to an ongoing estimate provided by Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs. That total includes more than $20 billion in higher gasoline prices paid by Americans since the war began on February 28, when the average price for a gallon of gas was under $3. On Monday, the average was about $4.52 per gallon.
That figure is roughly in line with the nearly $24 billion in higher gas prices that Americans have paid since the start of the conflict, according to Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis for Gas Buddy.
In other words, even if the military cost of the war is no larger than the Pentagon’s official estimate, the actual cost of the war doubles once the economic impact of higher gas prices is included.
There are other unknowns too. Does the Pentagon’s estimate include the cost of rebuilding the American military bases in the Middle East that have been damaged or destroyed by Iranian missiles? Hurst’s testimony suggests it does not. There are also the ongoing costs of medical care for the wounded, and indeed the broader human cost of the war: 13 Americans killed, more than 300 wounded, and thousands of casualties (including dozens of schoolchildren) in Iran and neighboring countries.
At that same April 29 hearing with the House Armed Services Committee, Hurst promised that the administration would ask Congress for a supplemental appropriation to cover the bill for the Iran war, and he said the request would “come to Congress once we have a full assessment of the cost of the conflict.”
When that assessment arrives, lawmakers should expect the bill to be significantly higher than $25 billion.
This is one reason the Constitution requires presidents to seek approval from Congress before starting wars. So that the elected representatives of the American people can debate the potential costs, fiscal and otherwise, rather than simply being expected to pick up the tab for a reckless and pointless conflict.
