DoD Spent $4.7 Billion for Venezuela,
Caribbean Ops: Report|
Blaze Malley / Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
(April 23, 2026) — The United States’ military campaign in the Western Hemisphere has cost American taxpayers at least $4.7 billion over the past eight months, according to a new report from the Costs of War Project at Brown University.
In what they call a “conservative estimate” based on limited public information, authors Hanna Homestead and Jennifer Kavanagh offer a detailed breakdown of the costs of U.S. military operations since August of last year. This includes naval, aircraft, and special forces deployments, as well as the costs associated with the operation that removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power and the campaign of airstrikes on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
The report comes as public attention remains focused on the war in Iran, even as U.S. military operations elsewhere have continued unabated. The U.S. military has carried out five deadly strikes on ships in Latin America and the Caribbean this month, killing at least 17 people. Since the attacks started in September 2025, at least 178 people have died in 51 separate strikes, according to the civilian harm watchdog group Airwars. Critics have called the attacks “unlawful extrajudicial killing,” and the operations have not been authorized by Congress.
The Trump administration has framed the strikes as an aggressive extension of its counternarcotics strategy, classifying cartels as “narco-terrorists” and callingfor the “total elimination” of their ability to threaten the “territory, safety, and security” of the United States.
Operation Absolute Resolve, the January raid that resulted in Maduro’s capture, also killed roughly 75 Cuban and Venezuelan personnel, and led to two known civilian deaths.
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