Closing Military Bases Overseas Will Save
Billions and Improve National Security
National Security, Weapon Systems & Force Structure | Letters & Comments

April 16, 2025
Dear President Donald J. Trump

For many years, you have rightly questioned the value of US military bases abroad. “What are we getting out of this?” you asked in 2016 about the billions of dollars taxpayers spend on bases in places such as Germany and South Korea.¹

The US operates more than 750 bases around the world costing around $66 billion annually.² It is time to reevaluate the need and effectiveness of this strategy. The military’s last available study found at least 19–22% excess base capacity worldwide, imposing billions in unnecessary costs.³

The undersigned group of military analysts, veterans, scholars, and other experts from across the political spectrum agree that your administration has an unprecedented opportunity to close unnecessary, wasteful military bases overseas and save billions of dollars while strengthening national security in the process.

Many of the more than 750 US bases abroad should have closed decades ago. Every member of the military stationed abroad costs tens of thousands of dollars more, on average, than stationing the same person on a domestic base.⁴ The transportation and shipping costs of moving troops, family members, and supplies to bases overseas, alone, are enormous.

Now imagine the billions we wastefully spend every year maintaining entire “America Towns” overseas– complete with housing, hospitals, schools, shopping malls, movie theaters, and much more. Large amounts of the money spent on bases abroad, including from the paychecks of military personnel, end up supporting host nation economies rather than the US economy.

Significantly reducing the US global footprint would bring home thousands of personnel and family members who would contribute to the domestic economy rather than foreign ones. Domestic bases should have plenty of capacity to receive troops: the Army and Air Force have both previously estimated having around 20% excess capacity at home.⁵

As you know, past administrations have saved billions of taxpayer dollars by closing overseas bases.⁶ Your first administration closed bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, among others, closed hundreds of unnecessary bases in Europe and Asia.⁷

Following your priorities, this letter’s signatories agree that there are at least four major additional reasons, beyond costs alone, to close overseas bases and improve national security in the process:

1. Overseas bases can entangle the US in unnecessary and costly foreign wars. Closing bases overseas will help you keep your promise that, “I’m not going to start wars, I’m going to stop wars.” Bases abroad become a target for foreign adversaries and risk getting the country into unnecessary wars. Bases dotting the globe also make war look like an easy solution for those in the Military Industrial Complex who, as you have said, “want to go to war all the ”⁸Closing bases abroad will allow you to bring troops home and reposition our military in locations that are actually essential to US interests.
2. Overseas bases can increase military tension and cause blowback. Rather than deterring adversaries, S. bases can exacerbate regional tensions, as in Eastern Europe and the Pacific, leading to greater military spending and aggression. In the Middle East in particular, US bases and troops have become focal points for violent threats, radicalization, and anti-American propaganda. Bases near Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia (where there are still US bases) were a major recruiting tool for al- Qaeda.
3. Closing overseas bases will help “stop war profiteering” and “clean up… the Military Industrial Complex.” You have rightly said that you will “carry out a much needed clean up of the Military Industrial Complex to stop the war profiteering and to always put America first.”⁹Maintaining unnecessary bases abroad enriches parts of the military industrial complex that are profiting off building and operating excess infrastructure abroad.
4. Overseas bases are increasingly unnecessary thanks to technological advancements. Because of advances in air and sealift and other military technology, the US could retain the ability to deploy rapid response forces to any part of the globe with far fewer overseas bases. The development of extremely accurate intermediate- and long-range ballistic missiles also makes overseas bases vulnerable to attacks that are very difficult to defend against.

Beyond overseas bases, there are also many wasteful and unnecessary domestic bases that should be closed. While you begin the process of closing bases abroad, we encourage you to call on Congress to implement a long overdue Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, in which an independent commission helps select a list of bases to be realigned or closed in consultation with affected communities.¹⁰

Given your administration’s commitment to cutting waste and maximizing efficiency, you should direct the Pentagon to close wasteful, unnecessary bases abroad. Doing so could save billions of dollars annually while improving the security of the United States.
Sincerely,

Organizations

American Friends Service Committee

Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security

CODEPINK

Council for a Livable World

Houston Peace and Justice Center

National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies

National Taxpayers Union

Peace Action

Prutehi Guåhan [Guam]

Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

RootsAction

Taxpayers for Common Sense

Veterans For Peace

War Prevention Initiative

Women Cross DMZ

Women for Genuine Security

World BEYOND War

Individuals

Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army (Ret.), Veterans For Peace

Catherine Lutz, Professor, Brown University

Coleen Rowley, Retired FBI agent, Eisenhower Media Network

Douglas Lummis, Discharged US Marine Corps as Captain; author, War is Hell

David Swanson, Author, Activist, World BEYOND War

David Vine, PhD, Author, Base Nation: How US Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World 

Elaine Scarry, Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and General Theory of Value, Harvard University

George Friday, National Organizer, United for Peace and Justice

Isa Arriola, Chair, Our Common Wealth 670

Jon Mitchell, Okinawa Times

Joseph Gerson, Executive Director, Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security

Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt Colonel, US Air Force (Ret.), Eisenhower Media Network

Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Colonel, US Army (Ret.), Eisenhower Media Network

Mark Selden, Emeritus Professor of History, Binghamton University

Matthew Hoh, Fellow, Eisenhower Media Network

Miriam Pemberton, Associate Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies

Norma Field, Ingersoll Distinguished Service Professor emerita, University of Chicago

Pat Elder, Director, Military Poisons

Pete Doktor, co-founder, Hawai`i Okinawa Alliance

Peter Kuznick, Professor/Director, Nuclear Studies Institute, American University

Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Director, Peace Philosophy Centre

Steve Rabson, US Army veteran, Brown University

Terry Lowman, Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community

Tiara Naputi, Associate Professor, University of California Irvine

William J. Astore, Lt Colonel, US Air Force (Ret.), Bracing Views

 cc: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz

Sen. Roger Wicker, Chair, Senate Committee on Armed Services

Sen. Jack Reed, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Armed Services Committee

Rep. Mike Rogers, Chair, House Committee on Armed Services

Rep. Adam Smith, Ranking Member, House Committee on Armed Services

Sen. Jim Risch, Chair, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Rep. Brian Mast, Chair, House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Rep. Gregory Meeks, Ranking Member, House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Sen. Susan Collins, Chair, Senate Committee on Appropriations

Sen. Patty Murray, Vice-Chair, Senate Committee on Appropriations

Rep. Tom Cole, Chair, House Committee on Appropriations

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Ranking Member, House Committee on Appropriations

COUNTRIES HOSTING US BASES ABROAD¹¹ 

ARUBA (Netherlands)

ASCENSION ISLAND (UK)

AUSTRALIA

BAHAMAS

BAHRAIN

BELGIUM

BOTSWANA

BULGARIA

BURKINA FASO

CAMEROON

CANADA

CHAD

CHILE

COLOMBIA

COSTA RICA

CUBA (Guantánamo Bay)

CURAÇAO (Netherlands)

CYPRUS

DENMARK(?)12

DIEGO GARCIA (Mauritius)

DJIBOUTI

EGYPT

EL SALVADOR

ESTONIA

FINLAND(?)

GABON

GEORGIA

GERMANY

GHANA

GREECE

GREENLAND (Denmark)

HONDURAS

HUNGARY

ICELAND

IRAQ

IRELAND

ISRAEL

ITALY

JAPAN

JORDAN

KENYA

KOREA, REPUBLIC OF

KOSOVO

KUWAIT

LATVIA

LITHUANIA

LUXEMBOURG

MALI

MARSHALL ISLANDS

NETHERLANDS

NORWAY

OMAN

PALAU

PANAMA

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

PERU

PHILIPPINES

POLAND

PORTUGAL

QATAR

ROMANIA

SAUDI ARABIA

SENEGAL

SINGAPORE

SLOVAKIA

SOMALIA

SPAIN

SURINAME

SWEDEN(?)

SYRIA

TAIWAN(?)

THAILAND

TURKEY

UGANDA

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

UNITED KINGDOM

Footnotes
1 New York Times, “Transcript: Donald Trump on NATO, Turkey’s Coup Attempt and the World,” July 21, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/us/politics/donald-trump-foreign-policy-interview.html.

2 Updating for 2025 the 2021 estimates of 750 bases and $55 billion/year, given Biden administration base construction and inflation, in David Vine, Patterson Deppen, and Leah Bolger, “Drawdown: Improving US and Global Security through Military Base Closures Abroad,” Quincy Institute/World Beyond War, September 2021, https://quincyinst.org/report/drawdown-improving-u-s-and-global-security-through-military-base-closures-abroad.

3 Department of Defense, “Department of Defense Infrastructure Capacity,” report, October 2017, https://fas.org/man/eprint/infrastructure.pdf.

4 Michael J. Lostumbo, et al., “Overseas Basing of US Military Forces: An Assessment of Relative Costs and Strategic Benefits,” RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, 2013, xxv.

5 Katherine G. Hammack, “2014 Green Book: The Costly Consequences of Excess Army Infrastructure and Overhead,” Army.mil, September 30, 2014,  “Posture of the United States Army Before the Committee on Armed Services,” United States House of Representatives, 113th Congress, March 25, 2014, statement of John M. McHugh, Secretary of the Army, and Raymond T. Odierno, Chief of Staff United States Army; Courtney Albon, “USAF Consolidating Excess Infrastructure but Still Calling for Base Closures,” Inside the Air Force, January 17, 2014.

6 The scale of savings can be seen in noting that closing unnecessary domestic bases has saved taxpayers an estimated $12 billion on a recurring annual basis. Peter Potochney, “Statement Before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, FY2018,” June 7, 2017.

7 See, e.g., David Vine, Base Nation: How US Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2015).

8 “Trump Rally in Wisconsin,” transcript, rev.com, September 7, 2024, https://www.rev.com/transcripts/trump-rally- in-wisconsin

9 “Trump Rally in Wisconsin.”

10 The last BRAC was in 2005. Collectively, prior BRAC rounds save taxpayers around $12 billion annually. Potochney, “Statement Before the Senate Appropriations Committee.”

11 This list is derived from the list in Vine et al., “Drawdown,” updated with the Pentagon’s most recent (FY2024) “Base Structure Report” and news reports. Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, “FY2024 Base Structure Report,” Washington, DC, September 20, 2024.

12 (?) indicates countries where the US has an agreement to station troops but where a US base presence is unconfirmed.