Mayor of New York Expresses Concern About Cost of Middle East Conflict
- The mayor of New York has been moved in recent days by the cost of the war being waged by the United States in the Middle East.
- To fund this conflict, Americans are spending over 500 million dollars a day, according to Zohran Mamdani.
- This is a plausible estimate, echoing recent academic work on the issue.
Mayor of New York since January 1, 2026, Zohran Mamdani has discussed the conflict in the Middle East and offered a critical perspective on the foreign policy conducted by the Trump administration. Speaking on NPR, the American public radio, on April 17, the socialist elected official explained that he did not understand how the White House could deem it “necessary” to spend “over 500 million dollars a day to kill people in Iran and Lebanon.” This situation, he stated, “speaks volumes about a policy that has lost all its meaning.”
The First Days of the Operation Were the Most Costly
The figure put forth by Zohran Mamdani is alarming. If accurate, this would mean that a month of conflict would cost the United States at least 15 billion dollars. And if a war were to drag on for a year, it would amount to over 180 billion dollars. To determine if these are realistic amounts, the first reflex is to examine the information publicly shared by American authorities.
In early March, the Pentagon provided a series of data to Congress, widely covered by the press. It stated that the first six days of the “Epic Fury” operation cost a total of no less than 11.3 billion dollars. This estimate, as noted by the New York Times
, “did not take into account many costs related to the operation, such as the deployment of military equipment and soldiers before the first strikes.” Therefore, lawmakers expected “this amount to increase significantly” when final assessments are made.
These 11.3 billion correspond to a daily expenditure of nearly 2 billion dollars, but it would be misleading to use them as a reference point for extrapolations. The initial days of the American intervention in Iran were marked by intense bombardments and massive mobilization of engaged armed forces. If the war continues at present, the volume of strikes has significantly decreased, resulting in lower expenses.
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With a lack of federal data covering a longer duration, we can rely on the work done by organizations not affiliated with American authorities. In early April, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania provided an estimate of the cost of the war in the Middle East. Members of the Penn Wharton Budget Model
(PWBM), a center using “advanced modeling and estimation tools to assess the influence of public policies on the federal budget,” estimated the total amount for the first thirty-two days to be between 27 and 28 billion dollars. Over a two-month scale, the operations’ balance would fall between 38 and 47 billion dollars, they added. The expenses during the different phases are summarized in the following table.
According to these studies, the figures presented by Zohran Mamdani align with the estimates of independent researchers. It is important to note that the evolution of the conflict and the attitude of the belligerents can have a major impact on the cost of war. The PWBM emphasized that the very high amount of the first days of the “Epic Fury” operation was largely due to “the use of expensive precision munitions.” If new operations were to be launched with an increase in strikes, the cost of the conflict could significantly rise for the United States.
