(Washington) Donald Trump’s criticized deployment of military assets on the streets of major American cities cost nearly $500 million last year, according to an estimate by a congressional body released Wednesday.
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The American president has sent or attempted to send troops to several cities led by his Democratic opponents, such as the capital Washington or Los Angeles, in the name of what he presented as the fight against crime.
These operations encountered a lot of opposition in the cities concerned, including in the streets, as well as in the courts, including the Supreme Court, the highest court in the country.
Donald Trump also announced at the end of December to withdraw the National Guard, an army reserve unit, from Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles after a series of legal setbacks.
In a response published Wednesday to the request of a Democratic elected official, Phillip Swagel, who heads the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), an organization without partisan ties, estimated that these decisions had “cost approximately $ 496 million” in 2025.
The most expensive operation is that which concerns Washington, with 223 million dollars to finance some 2,600 soldiers of the National Guard.
These deployments will continue to cost several tens of millions of dollars per month this year, according to Mr. Swagel, who recognizes, however, that such an assessment is “very uncertain” because it is difficult to predict “their scale, duration and location.”
Within the current parameters of these operations, he cited figures of $6 million per month in New Orleans, 28 in Memphis and 55 in Washington.
