The Trump administration’s high-profile deployment of federal troops into multiple U.S. cities has produced a multi-city price tag that the Congressional Budget Office put at roughly $496 million through the end of December, according to new budget data released this week. The CBO said the total cost could rise to more than $1 billion for the remainder of the year if deployments continue at current levels.
CBO’s estimates were published after a request from Sen. Jeff Merkley, the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, who cited the bill’s call for transparency about the spending and asserted that the deployments were “reckless and haphazard.” Merkley said, “The American people deserve to know how many hundreds of millions of their hard-earned dollars have been and are being wasted on Trump’s reckless and haphazard deployment of National Guard troops to Portland and cities across the country.”
The CBO focused its cost calculations on deployments it tied to National Guard forces and active-duty Marines sent to cities that have included Chicago, Memphis, and Portland, as well as Los Angeles in June, AP reported. The CBO said deployments continuing to those cities would cost about $93 million per month. The estimate also excluded what it described as the military’s December deployment to New Orleans.
The cost projections reached beyond the initial cities, with the CBO laying out a scenario for “further possible deployments down the road.” In that analysis, the CBO estimated that deploying 1,000 National Guard personnel to a U.S. city in 2026 would cost $18 million to $21 million per month, depending on the local cost of living.
The deployments have also driven legal disputes, AP reported. In January, a California federal judge ruled that the Trump administration “willfully” broke federal law by sending National Guard units to the Los Angeles area, according to the AP account.
The White House has defended the deployments as a public-safety measure. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson did not address the CBO’s cost estimate but said in a statement that the administration’s efforts have driven down crime. Jackson said, “Thanks to the Trump Administration’s highly successful efforts to drive down violent crime, cities like Memphis and D.C. are much safer for residents and visitors — with crime dropping across all major categories,” and added, “The media should talk to individuals who are able to go about their daily lives without fear of being assaulted, carjacked, or robbed thanks to the Trump Administration.”
The AP report also said National Guard troops are expected to remain deployed in Washington throughout 2026, citing a memo it said had been reviewed earlier this month.