President Donald Trump’s contentious deployments of troops in multiple US cities cost nearly $500 million in 2025, according to an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published Wednesday.
Trump sent troops onto the streets of Democratic-led cities including Los Angeles and Washington, DC to quell allegedly out-of-control unrest, while court challenges blocked him from doing so in some other locations.
“CBO estimates that those deployments…cost a total of approximately $496 million through the end of December 2025,” its director Phillip Swagel wrote in response to a request from a top Democratic lawmaker. (AFP)