Trump's Department of War rebrand may cost taxpayers $125 million as new budget details revealed

President Donald Trump’s move to rebrand the Department of Defense to the Department of War could cost taxpayers $125 million, and that’s just the start of it.

You might be wondering what is going on in Trump’s Administration when it comes to the Department of Defense's name being changed to the Department of War.

While it was once an informal nickname, Trump signed an executive order to change it to its official secondary title in September 2025, which might just have been a costly decision.

According to Trump, the change reflected the ‘strength’ of the US, as her said, per ABC News: "I think it sends a message of victory. I think it sends a message, really a message of strength.

"We're very strong."

However, this rebrand is likely to cost anywhere from $10 million to $125 million, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in a January 14 report.

Donald Trump's name change for the Department of Defense could be costly (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

These figures come as the CBO revealed if the name changed stayed within Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's office, it could be on the cheaper end of the scale. However, it also ‘could be as large as $125 million if the name change was implemented broadly and rapidly throughout the department'.

“The faster the changes were implemented, the more parts of DoD that the changes applied to, and the more complete the renaming, the costlier it would be,” the estimate added.

The CBO went on to note that if the Trump administration moves to formally rename the Department of Defense to impact all areas through legislation in Congress, the cost could be significant.

"If phased in gradually and limited to [the Office of the Secretary of Defense], incremental costs could be similar to the range of costs for an unofficial name change," the report revealed.

"If, however, implementing agencies chose to mandate an immediate change across all materials, costs could reach hundreds of millions of dollars."

The Department of Defense is now known as the Department of War (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The CBO, said it is trying to ‘provide objective, nonpartisan information’ to Congress right now, but due to the Department of Defense allegedly not having provided details of how it has been implementing changes since the September executive order came into place, or how it plans to continue implementing changes if the new name becomes a formal change, it cannot supply a true estimate of costs.

What can been seen, in terms of changes, is that Hegseth's office door sign has been replaced with a ‘Secretary of War’ sign and the Pentagon’s website has changed from ‘defense.gov’ to ‘war.gov'.

UNILAD reached out to the White House for comment.

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