Of course, Trump promised not to start any wars and to end existing ones easily and swiftly. Of course, one of the many reasons not to have believed him was that he wanted ever higher military spending. Of course, military spending makes the use of a military more, not less, likely.

But Trump’s current push is supposedly to take his record-breaking trillion-dollar-a-year military budget and raise it to $1.5 trillion a year. This is a lie built on a falsehood wrapped in a Truth Social post.

According to a new report from POGO, U.S. military spending is already $1.5 to $1.7 trillion per year, or — if you include (and why shouldn’t you?) interest on debt for past military spending, $1.7 to $2.3 trillion per year. The variations among the five different calculations featured in the report have a lot to do with the complexity and obscurity of the U.S. government, including the variety of sources of government data that can be used. It takes serious research to dig the militarism out, as it’s hidden everywhere. But the big-ticket items are things like “Homeland Security” and veterans’ benefits and debt interest.

In 2025, the entire non-U.S. world for which SIPRI has data spent $1.86 trillion on militaries. China spent $0.336 trillion, Russia $0.19 trillion, Iran $0.007 trillion. Meanwhile the U.S. was at $2.3 trillion, vastly more than the rest of the world combined, or over 4 times its three designated enemies combined. The U.S. and its allies and partners and weapons customers in 2025 (that is, every government except the three designated enemies) spent $3.63 trillion or almost 7 times the combined spending of the three designated enemies.

At these spending levels you would think everyone is planning to invade the USA! Sheesh!