US President Donald Trump says he plans to seek reparations from countries the US “protected” during its war against Iran.
In an interview with CBS News correspondent Ross Douthat that aired Sunday, President Trump said such countries “will pay us all the costs of the war.”
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“We’re going to get all that money back,” Trump said. “They will do it 100 percent, because without us they wouldn’t exist.”
President Trump also explicitly mentioned compensation from Israel for the first time, saying that without U.S. military intervention, compensation “would not exist.”
The redemption request comes in the wake of President Trump and his Republican Party’s crushing defeat in the midterm elections, which the president acknowledged was partly due to public dissatisfaction with the Iran war.
The US president subsequently declared the war militarily “effectively over” and defended the decision to start the conflict as a “very good decision”.
Here’s what you need to know about President Trump’s repayment request and what it means for the United States and its allies.
Which countries is President Trump seeking compensation for?
For the first time, President Trump singled out Israel, which has been a direct participant in the war against Iran from the beginning.
“We decapitated their (Iran) nuclear weapon,” he said. “If I hadn’t done that, there wouldn’t be Israel today. Israel would be gone.”
President Trump has previously said he would seek repayment from Gulf states that benefit from the U.S. military presence in the hotly contested Strait of Hormuz, where U.S. forces protect ships.
“We’re protecting a very rich part of the world, and we’re spending money, so what we’re doing is going to be reimbursed for the protection,” Trump said at a press conference in July.
He named Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait as countries that should pay.
But while Israel jointly launched a war against Iran with the United States, Gulf states say they were not even informed of the U.S. plan and have since faced the brunt of Iran’s retaliatory attacks. As members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), they have sought a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
How much damage did the Iran war cost the United States?
According to the U.S. military, it totaled $47.1 billion as of mid-October.
However, this figure does not include the cost of repairing damage to US military bases across the Middle East, so the full cost is likely to be even higher.
In September, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the conflict would result in an additional $2 billion to $3 billion per month in additional costs.
Will President Trump actually seek repayment from allies?
Probably not directly, analysts say.
Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House, told Al Jazeera that Trump’s comments are “best understood as a political signal rather than a serious policy proposal.”
Bader al-Saif, assistant professor of history at Kuwait University and associate research fellow in Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program, added that Gulf states in particular are likely to take Trump’s comments “with a grain of salt.”
“I think what[Trump]said on the US news channels is for domestic consumption. Most of the Gulf countries will take it that way,” Al-Saif said.
Stephen Lucas, an analyst specializing in security and foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa, also pointed to Trump’s domestic political considerations, saying the US president is “looking for someone to hold accountable and doing everything he can to distract from the results of the midterm elections.”
Lucas told Al Jazeera that Washington’s Arab allies in the region were unlikely to face large reparation payments “or anything like that.”
But he suggested that President Trump may seek more serious economic concessions from Israel, especially after Israel announced it would no longer receive aid from the United States after the end of this year.
Part of the reason, Lucas said, is because, from President Trump’s perspective, “Israel pushed him into a disastrous war with Iran.”
What will be the compensation?
Al-Saif said President Trump could be “very innovative” in defining what constitutes redemption for war, potentially pointing to existing trade deals or investments from the Gulf.
“There is a lot of agreement for him to come back and claim his rights,” Al-Saif said. “There have been a lot of commitments (from Gulf countries) to invest in the United States.”
Farid Bousaid, assistant professor of Middle East politics at the University of Amsterdam, said the US government could push for more investment in the Gulf and offer it as compensation.
“This will likely be indirect, in the form of commercial investments in the United States, the purchase of American weapons systems in addition to those already ordered, and investments in President Trump’s inner circle of financial transactions,” Bused said.
President Trump has repeatedly made misleading claims about foreign investments and trade deals, portraying them as payments or gifts to the United States.
After the trade deal with the European Union in July 2025, President Trump claimed that the European Union had given the United States a $600 billion “gift” to invest in “whatever we want.” However, the framework agreement only referred to the expectation that European companies would invest $600 billion across strategic areas in the United States by 2028.
That same month, President Trump said of Japan’s $550 billion investment pledge under the new U.S.-Japan trade agreement, “It’s like a contract bonus that a baseball player gets.”
During President Trump’s first term, he repeatedly insisted that Mexico would pay for the border wall, but it was never completed and Mexico did not pay for it. President Trump then claimed that Mexico would reimburse the United States for the cost of building the wall or pay a “portion” of the wall, but this also did not materialize. President Trump at one point claimed that the trade deal he negotiated with Mexico would pay for the wall.
How will U.S. allies react to President Trump’s demands?
Analysts say America’s Gulf allies have already suffered heavy economic losses during the war and would not be happy to be asked to pay even more for a war they did not start.
Quilliam said Gulf leaders were likely to respond with “quiet resistance” to any demands for direct repayments, arguing that they “already contribute significantly to regional security costs through defense cooperation, investment and economic partnerships with the United States.”
Gulf states also pay for the upkeep of several large bases that the United States uses for military operations in the region.
Boused said Gulf states would be particularly reluctant to make such a request because “the U.S.-Israel war resulted in significant damage to[civilian]military infrastructure due to Iranian counterattacks.”
Al-Saif added that Trump’s “condescending language does not bode well for a partner who has long invested in our relationship with the United States.”
Marji Kouhi Esfahani, assistant professor of Middle East politics and international relations at Durham University, said Israel is unlikely to “reverse its long-standing role as a recipient of aid rather than a provider of aid” in its relationship with the United States.
“While Israel and the United States continue to share intelligence and coordinate on regional security issues, any request that requires Israel to shoulder a significant financial burden would run contrary to established practice and Israel’s current resource constraints,” she said.
