Trump’s foreign policy saves taxpayers $320 billion over 4 years: Report

Trump’s foreign policy saves taxpayers $320 billion over 4 years: Report

President Trump’s foreign policy approach in the second term – hard border security, shifting weapons support to allied-financed purchases, hawkish actions in the Middle East and reforming foreign assistance – will yield over $320 billion in net taxpayer savings over four years, according to a new report from a GOP-linked group.

The 72-page analysis from Polaris National Security, which was first shared with The Hill, estimated that a potential second Biden-Harris White House term would have imposed about $512 billion on American taxpayers. The Trump administration invested around $186 billion to restore “deterrence,” including military operations abroad and strong border enforcement – yielding approximately $326 billion in net taxpayer savings over the president’s four-year term or nearly $2,500 per American household, the report said. With the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), the joint U.S. and NATO procurement mechanism to fund and supply Ukraine with U.S.-made weapons, the administration is projected to save taxpayers $258 billion . By eliminating mass parole and lowering the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. as part of its effort to seal off the U.S.-Mexico border , the administration averted about $158 billion in projected taxpayer costs, according to the analysis. The administration has also largely dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) , while some of its functions have been transferred to the State Department. These actions will save taxpayers around $47 billion, the report said. The analysis also stated that by pushing to end the Israel-Hamas war, brokering a U.S.-Houthi ceasefire, bombing Iran’s three nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan last year and launching a war against the Islamic Republic earlier this year would end up saving $49 billion. “While a JCPOA 2.0 deal would have handed Tehran up to $640 billion, nominal, over a four-year term, President Trump’s military actions have already imposed the most severe economic blow to the Iranian regime in its history,” the report said. “After only the first two months of Operation Epic Fury, it was estimated the U.S. operation could impose approximately $144 billion in total economic damage on Iran, or 40 percent of its total pre-war GDP.” The U.S. war with Iran has cost consumers over $100 billion in higher energy prices, according to the Iran War Energy Cost Tracker from Brown’s Watson School. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Congress in July that the cost of the U.S.’s conflict with Iran has cost around 37.5 billion. But some experts who spoke with The Hill in July said the cost of the war could be higher than $100 billion. Trump has argued that Americans are willing to endure higher prices to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. “Naysayers who simply tally the operational costs of military operations miss the larger picture: the greatest dividend of strength is the conflict it prevents,” Cale Brown, the chair of Polaris National Security, said in a statement.

“By reestablishing deterrence through the use of decisive force on his terms, President Trump is upending costly models of accommodation and appeasement, forestalling larger conflicts and saving American blood and treasure.”

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How policy will affect defense and national security now and in the future:

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