The deployment of 800 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., under the Trump administration, marks a historic shift in federal involvement in local law enforcement. This action follows an unprecedented attempt to take control of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, which has operated under local authority since the Home Rule Act. Additional support from up to six states could bring the total military presence to around 2,000 personnel. Despite this show of force, crime in the district has declined by 26% in 2025 compared to the previous year—a reduction the president himself acknowledged in May when defending his U.S. Attorney nominee.
The financial implications remain uncertain, but comparisons can be drawn from a two-month deployment of 5,000 National Guard members in Los Angeles, which cost approximately $134 million. With the current operation expected to last 30 days—and potentially longer if Congress approves—costs could escalate significantly. The federal government is bearing most of the expense, and increased troop numbers will only amplify the burden.
Early economic indicators are already negative. OpenTable data shows restaurant reservations in D.C. have dropped by over 25% since the deployment began and are now 22% lower than the same period last year. This decline likely stems from public unease over the military presence, logistical disruptions, and uncertainty about protests or traffic issues. Many visitors appear to be avoiding the city, impacting tourism-dependent businesses.
National Guard members are not trained for domestic policing and are reportedly unarmed, serving primarily as a visible deterrent in tourist-heavy zones rather than high-crime neighborhoods. This raises questions about the operation’s actual purpose, with some suggesting it serves more as a public relations effort than a crime-fighting initiative.
The broader economic risk lies in prolonged uncertainty. If consumer confidence does not recover, reduced foot traffic could lead to fewer employee shifts, lower wages, and a downward spiral in local economic activity. Restoring funding cuts—such as the $1 billion reduction tied to a recent continuing resolution—could have a more tangible impact on public safety than military deployment. For now, the operation remains a costly and unproven strategy with measurable economic downsides.
— news from Federal News Network
— News Original —
Considering the economic impact of the President’s law enforcement measures in DC
Eric White So, getting past whether or not — who agrees with what on the matter of deploying the National Guard because of so-called crime issues in the D.C. area, they’re here, and that’s just a new reality. Who knows how long they’ll be here for. What can you tell me about the logistical obstacles that this is going to have to overcome and just get a ballpark of the kind of costs that we’re looking at here for a deployment like this? n nMichael Negron First thing I’d say is that this is still a developing situation. We have a couple things that are historic in nature at play. One was the Trump administration, in fact, attempted to commandeer the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, something that has never been attempted in the 50-plus-year history of the Home Rule Act. And then as a part of that move, they’ve deployed 800 National Guard soldiers. And apparently there are six other states that seem to be on track to send another thousand-plus. So, depending on how those develop, we might find ourselves in a few days with 2,000 National Guardsmen in D.C., along with the D.C. Police Department, which thanks to the intervention of a court, remained under the control of the police commissioner. However, there are some new rules in place around immigration enforcement, which is putting D.C. police into the position of essentially acting contrary to the sanctuary city law that’s been on the books for a while. So we have this unprecedented insertion of federal military power into the district for law enforcement purposes. Based on the reporting that I’ve seen, these National Guardsmen are deployed into tourist-heavy areas, not really the areas that have historically suffered from higher crime in the district. Of course, layered over all of this is the fact that crime in the district is down 26% in 2025. Violent crime is down 26% compared to 2024, a fact that the pesident himself acknowledged in early May when he was trying to defend his nominee for U.S. Attorney at the time, Ed Martin, where he praised that reduction in violent crime for the district. So three months later, it’s a national emergency, despite what he said several months ago. And so we have this unprecedented deployment. The costs are unclear at the moment in terms of federal taxpayer dollars. It’s worth noting that the two-month deployment of 5,000 National Guardsmen to Los Angeles had a price tag of about $134 million. So that’s a helpful benchmark in thinking about what this might cost us right now. It looks like the Trump administration is viewing this as a 30 day deployment, but they are teasing that they may ask Congress to go longer. So we may end up, depending on how many other states try to join this operation, the cost could end up being somewhat similar. However, we’ve seen some early costs now just to the local economy. There is OpenTable, which is the online service for reservations that is probably the biggest reservation service. OpenTable data has showed that restaurant reservations fell by over 25% compared to what it was prior to the president’s ordering of the National Guard into D.C. And the latest data has that reservations are down 22% compared to a year ago. So we see that it is an outlier and it’s almost certainly driven by this deployment of troops into the district. n nEric White Well, it is also very expensive to go out to D.C. dinners. n nMichael Negron Yeah. So that’s, that’s true. However, people were willing to do it — about a quarter more people were willing do it a month ago. And so, the tariffs are driving up the costs for people, but I don’t think they have changed costs that much in a week, and so it really does seem to be driven by the presence of these soldiers. Now, the thing is, is that, look, a lot of people probably see the soldiers and feel better about safety in the district, but a lot of people don’t and there’s just the element of hassle. The notion of, if there’s going to be a lot of federal troops present in D.C., what’s that mean for my drive? Is there going to be an incident? Are there going to be protests because of this presence of troops? And so, many people appear to be deciding to stay home for the moment, given what they’re seeing on the news, as well as the uncertainty that is currently present, because it’s not clear how long they’re going to be around. It’s not clear if more are coming. It’s not clear how people are going to react to it. And so that uncertainty itself has a cost for businesses, as well as for households. n nEric White Let’s hone in on the troops actually on the ground here. Is this what they had in mind when they enlist in the National Guard? Are they trained for a job like this? And as you mentioned, they don’t know — there’s no real timeline there. Do National Guard troops typically have a timeline that they’re given when they are deployed? How does that aspect factor into this? n nMichael Negron Yes, well, folks join the National Guard for all kinds of reasons. In terms of what they’re typically trained to do, they are not typically trained to to do police work, law enforcement work. They help with maintaining order after, say, a disaster, they can help with providing relief to people, in the event of a disaster. Of course, there are National Guards who, during our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, would deploy overseas as part of those operations. And so the notion of deploying a National Guard into an American city to help with police work and to keep violence down, that is not something that they have been trained for. And just in terms of what it means for these National Guardsmen, my understanding, although this may be changing, is that nearly all of them have been without a weapon. So they are just standing as a physical, visible presence, again, in these areas that are largely occupied by tourists, and not really a focus of crime rates. And so it also calls into question what the ultimate purpose of these folks are. They’re not trained to do this. They don’t appear to be armed and they are not where the actual violence is, which is actually a good thing, just from the perspective of what they’re actually equipped to do. But it gives this whole thing the air of more about PR and potentially distracting from less friendly headlines than to be actually about lowering crime in the district. And again, while the district has seen a major decrease in violent crime, there’s always more work to do. One crime is too many, and a place where the president could really have an impact is restoring the billion dollars in cuts that the district is slated to get thanks to the continuing resolution that the Republicans passed earlier this year. It was a bipartisan effort in the Senate to fix that. It didn’t go anywhere in the House. The president could get involved and could insist, I’d like to see something happen, however, I also want to see more funding for police officers or other policing tools to help get violence down. That would have a real impact, not this deployment of 800 to maybe potentially 2,000 troops who appear to be not in the places where the crime’s happening. n nEric White With more states volunteering to send troops along to help this effort, will that bring the cost to the federal government itself down? Will the states bear that burden? Do you know anything about how that aspect works? n nMichael Negron I believe the federal government is shouldering the majority of these costs. The addition of additional soldiers from other National Guards units in other states really just increases the head count, which contributes to the cost of the operation. I don’t believe it provides any alleviation in terms of cost. And if anything, it will amplify the economic impact as you have more and more of a presence in D.C. It suggests that we may have something of a bunker mentality in the district. What ideally would happen is that this decline in reservations, decline in business traffic, is a blip that comes back up after people see, okay, well, things aren’t that different, so I’m going to go back and go have a good time in the district. But if it continues to look like a developing situation with uncertainty, you could see these numbers for reservations, for people visiting the city start to stay down and that will affect how many shifts a business owner assigns, whether workers are able to work the shifts that they expect and getting the pay that they normally expect and that’s how you start to have a bad cycle where business activity goes hand-in-hand with employment levels, and that wouldn’t be a good thing. So uncertainty generally is bad for business, bad for consumers and uncertainty is written all over this operation. n nEric White Yeah, you had mentioned we have some precedent here, the Trump administration did deploy the National Guard in Los Angeles when there was so-called disturbances happening there. Was there any analysis done once the troops did end up leaving on the effect that it had on the area? Did you all take a look at that at all?