Report: US Burned Through $200M of Munitions in 1 Day After Trump Restarted War

The U.S. burned through roughly $200 million worth of a single type of missile in one day last month, new reporting reveals as a top Iranian military official claims that Iran could prolong the war until 2029 and beyond.

U.S. officials told The New York Times that the U.S. fired 50 Patriot interceptors in just a single day in July, during a week in which Iran was firing at the U.S.’s military bases in Jordan. Patriot missiles are made by Raytheon Technologies, are used to intercept munitions, and cost around $4 million to $5 million per missile.

This means that, in that one day, the U.S. may have used up to $250 million of just one type of missile. Further, the U.S. has reportedly used over 1,500 Patriot interceptor missiles throughout the Iran war, equating to between roughly $6 billion to $7.5 billion worth of the munition.

The Iranian strikes that week came as a response to Trump unilaterally declaring the week before that the ceasefire deal was over and unleashing a deluge of strikes on Iran, including on civilian infrastructure. One of the Iranian strikes made it through the missile defenses on July 17, killing three soldiers and wounding over 100.

The price tag of the missiles highlights the high costs of the war as it pushes on to its sixth month with no end in sight.

The Patriot intercept is just one of numerous types of munitions that the U.S. has been rapidly using amid the war. Numerous reports have said that the U.S. has burned through a large proportion of its munitions stockpiles, pummelling Iran despite the U.S. internally assessing that more strikes are futile to move Iran on negotiations.

Meanwhile, Iranians are suffering under the intense bombardments, experiencing severe environmental impacts while also operating under the threat of bombs. The U.S. and Israel have killed over 3,400 Iranian civilians in strikes between February and June, according to the United Nations, and another 33,000 civilians have been injured.

That death toll doesn’t include a U.S. strike late last month that killed a husband, wife, and their 2-year-old son in their home in a densely populated neighborhood on Qeshm island. Reports found that the U.S. likely used a 2,000-pound bomb in that strike, leaving a massive crater where the family formerly lived and zero evidence of military casualties near the attack.

Negotiations to end the war are seemingly at a standstill. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump repeated his assertion that the U.S. “has total control over the Strait of Hormuz” and “WILL KEEP IT!,” despite traffic through the waterway remaining largely blocked by Iran. “Iran is all talk and no action,” Trump said.

But the Trump administration is facing pressures for the war to end soon. The humanitarian toll of the war grows each day. The war continues to be extremely unpopular among the public, including Trump’s own voter base. Reports claim that the U.S. is running out of munitions, while morale among soldiers is declining. And gas prices, which are already high, may soon grow even higher as global oil and gas stockpiles are depleting rapidly.

Meanwhile, Iranian officials have suggested that they are considering prolonging the war even further in order to beat Trump in a war of attrition.

In an interview with PBS on Tuesday, top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps official Mohammad Reza Naqdi said, through an interpreter, that Iran can even outlast Trump’s presidential term — which is slated to end in 2029.

“Look, we have to attain deterrence so that the enemy never dares to attack us, so we can live with security,” Naqdi said through an interpreter. “One way is to prolong this war until we get to the next term of the presidency and cause attrition, so that if anyone else wants to attack Iran, they will know there is a cost.”