‘Not Even A Little Bit’: Trump Shrugs Off Americans’ Economic Concerns Over Iran War

President Donald Trump has said that Americans’ economic pain is not his concern when it comes to the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran.

When asked at the White House on Tuesday if Americans’ financial situations were motivating him to strike a deal with Iran, Trump said, “Not even a little bit.”

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn before departing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. “I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”

The war has also directly cost taxpayers an estimated $29 billion, a top Pentagon official testified on Tuesday. Jay Hurst, the Pentagon comptroller, told members of Congress that war costs have risen “closer” to $29 billion—an increase of $4 billion from just two weeks earlier when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D, Ariz.) said this week that the U.S. is running short of munitions due to the war, citing a Department of Defense briefing he had received. Hegseth accused Kelly of leaking classified information and insisted that the U.S. has “plenty of what we need.”

The Pentagon has requested nearly $1.45 trillion for the coming year’s budget—roughly 40% more than what the U.S. spent this fiscal year as officials cited the need to restock munitions for the war. That figure may also not include supplemental financing for the war. “Whatever we think we need, we will submit,” Hegseth told congressmembers on Tuesday.

As midterm elections approach, the rising cost-of-living is threatening Trump’s promises to “make America affordable again.” Over the past year, Democrats have won a number of closely-watched elections on affordability platforms.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung clarified Trump’s comments in a statement to media outlets, noting that the President’s “ultimate responsibility is the safety and security of Americans. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and if action wasn’t taken, they’d have one, which threatens all Americans.”

War threatens affordability

As war costs rise and trade disruptions rattle the global economy, Trump has shirked concerns that everyday expenses are becoming out-of-reach for Americans.

“We can’t take care of day care. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We’re fighting wars,” Trump said in March at a private White House event for Easter. “We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”

On Tuesday, the President defended his economic policies, which have been defined by controversial global tariffs, most of which were reversed by the Supreme Court in February and that the government must now refund. “If you go back to just before the war, for the last three months, inflation was at 1.7%,” he said.

Still, the Trump Administration appears anxious to rein in soaring gas prices as Americans grow weary of the war. Trump said he was “going to” suspend the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gas tax to alleviate prices at the pump, although any pause would require congressional approval.

The cease-fire in early April failed to restore shipping through the Strait, and it remains to be seen when maritime trade will return to normal. Last week, Trump launched, and then paused a day later, an effort to “guide” stranded ships out of the area. European countries are weighing a naval mission to escort ships through the Strait, and South Korea is considering providing phased support to secure the waterway after a South Korean cargo ship was attacked last week. Iran denied involvement in the attack. Analysts previously told TIME that fears of renewed attacks could make shippers and shipping insurers reluctant to sail through the Strait after the war ends, which could keep oil and gas prices elevated for some time.

“The American people understand,” Trump nevertheless insisted on Tuesday. “When it’s over, you’re going to have a massive drop in the price of oil.” 

No war, no peace

After attacks in the Strait between the U.S. and Iran and suspected Iranian attacks on Gulf states last week, Trump officials said that the cease-fire is intact for now but on thin ice. As Democratic lawmakers have sought to force an end to the war through the War Powers Act, Trump claimed that the war is over and therefore does not require congressional approval. Trump has also said the war will end soon, although he has repeatedly threatened to begin bombing Iran again if no deal is reached.

“There are clearly continued lower-level hostilities, which makes it difficult to take seriously the administration’s claims that the war has ended,” William Figueroa, an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Groningen, told TIME last week.

In recent days, Trump, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has doubled down on the need to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, calling such a scenario a national security threat to the U.S. and Israel. Last year, Trump claimed that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been “obliterated” after the U.S. and Israel bombed three of Iran’s nuclear facilities, while U.S. intelligence suggested that the attacks had pushed back the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon by up to a year. U.S. intelligence assessments have reportedly indicated that that timeline has not been changed by the past 10 weeks of conflict. U.N. inspectors said they are unable to determine how much of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, suspected to be buried underground, remains.

Iran has maintained that it never sought to build a nuclear weapon and that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes. Iranian officials have said they are wary of making a nuclear agreement with the U.S. after the U.S.-Israeli attacks twice disrupted earlier talks. Trump pulled the U.S. out of an Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran in 2019.

Trump has repeatedly said that the U.S. has militarily “defeated” Iran. But critics have argued that it is unclear to what extent Trump has achieved his aims in the war despite its heavy economic, military, and human costs. Secret U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that Iran still has operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, the New York Times reported.

Despite U.S.-Israeli bombs decimating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ ranks and killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the theocratic regime remains in place with Khamenei’s son Mojtaba at its head. And, analysts told TIME, the regime appears willing to fight to the end, even as millions of Iranians face a collapsing economy and thousands were killed in the war.

“The war has already been hitting Americans in their wallets from the first day. Gas prices have spiked, mortgage rates are climbing due to fears of increased inflation, and the conflict has driven up the cost of oil and shipping, which risks a global recession,” Figueroa told TIME in March.