The Iran conflict has killed 18 U.S. troops and cost billions, but Trump says it’s ‘small potatoes’

President Donald Trump on Friday described the Iran conflict as “small potatoes” while backing Vice President JD Vance. Vance had said the months of on-and-off attacks in the Middle East should not be called a “war.”

The remarks came in an Oval Office exchange after reporters asked about Vance’s comments from the previous day. Trump said U.S. strikes on Iran are now “intermittent” and added that “a lot of people don’t call it a war.”

According to the Associated Press, the fighting has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $37.5 billion and left 18 U.S. service members dead.

Vance rejects calling U.S. fighting with Iran a war

Vance addressed the issue on Thursday during a White House press briefing. He refused to use the word “war” for the U.S. fighting with Iran and avoided any forecast that the 6-month-old conflict would end before November’s midterm elections.

Republicans are trying to hang on to their narrow majorities in Congress. Asked whether the fighting could wrap up before voters go to the polls on Nov. 3, Vance said, “I wouldn’t call it a war.” He continued, “Right now, there is no active shooting.” Those comments came as Iran fired at U.S. Gulf ally Kuwait on Thursday. The action was described as retaliation for U.S. strikes on Iran earlier in the week.

Trump later told reporters the U.S. death toll in the Iran conflict is relatively lower than in some other recent American wars. The U.S. and Israel have limited their role to air strikes since the fighting began Feb. 28 and have not sent troops into Iran.

“We did Venezuela and we did this. In Venezuela, we lost nobody,” Trump said, pointing to the January U.S. military operation that seized former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and took him to New York City to face federal drug trafficking charges. “And this, we lost 18 people. And, in Vietnam we lost 100,000 people. And in other conflicts, we lost tens of thousands of people.”

Records from the U.S. National Archives show that 58,220 members of the U.S. armed forces died during the Vietnam War. The escalating tensions underscore the ongoing conflict, as Vance recently stated the U.S. is still in the middle of the game with Iran, and negotiations might not be an end to the war. 

A reporter challenged Trump for calling the conflict “small potatoes” after 18 U.S. service members had been killed. Trump replied that the fighting has led to the defanging of Iran’s nuclear program. At the start, he had said the war would last only a matter of weeks.

“Iran will not have a nuclear weapon because if they did you probably wouldn’t be standing here,” Trump said. He also stated, “I can understand what he’s saying,” and added, “I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing.” The administration’s cost estimates have varied widely, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently told the Senate the war has cost $37.5 billion so far, with other estimates putting the bill far higher.