Even a partial tally makes clear why.
According to the Center for New American Security, it costs approximately $6.5 million dollars a day to operate a carrier strike group. That brings the total for America’s current force presence in the Persian Gulf to some $13 million daily. Per day costs for the extra ships and hardware that make up President Trump’s Mideast “armada” add to that total. Put another way, the past month of keeping forces “on station” in the southern Gulf has already cost the U.S. military on the order of $200 million. And if negotiations continue to drag on, the tally for the current, augmented presence will reach or exceed half-a-billion dollars by mid- to late March.