How do presidential travel expenses for golf compare to travel for official diplomatic or policy trips?
Executive summary
Analyses of President Trump’s golf travel put taxpayer costs per Mar‑a‑Lago or country‑club trip at roughly $3.4 million, with HuffPost and related outlets estimating about $70–75 million so far in 2025 and projecting the second‑term total could exceed $300 million if the pace continues [1] [2]. By contrast, available reporting and federal rules show that typical official diplomatic or policy travel is budgeted and reimbursed under per‑diem and agency travel rules—orders of magnitude lower per person for routine costs—but those official figures do not capture the large added security and transport overhead tied to a sitting president [3] [4] [5].
1. Golf trips are unusually costly because of presidential security and transport
Multiple outlets citing a HuffPost analysis calculate each long‑distance presidential golf or Mar‑a‑Lago trip carries about a $3.4 million travel and security bill, with some individual trips estimated higher when additional aircraft or days were used [1] [6]. Those estimates draw on the Government Accountability Office’s earlier accounting and on the special security footprint required when the president leaves Washington—including Air Force One, Marine One and extensive Secret Service and local law‑enforcement deployments—which is why these outings generate much higher totals than typical federal travel [1] [7].
2. Official diplomatic and policy travel is governed by per‑diem and allowances, not headline totals
Routine travel for diplomats and federal employees is reimbursed under standardized regulations: GSA per‑diem rates for CONUS lodging and meals, Department of State rules for overseas allowances, and Defense Travel Management guidance for military travelers [3] [8] [9]. These rules set daily caps and reimbursement methods, making ordinary ministerial or embassy travel cost‑predictable—far lower on a per‑person basis than the aggregated security/transport totals cited for presidential golf trips [4] [5].
3. Apples‑to‑oranges: per‑person per‑day vs. whole‑mission security and lift costs
Comparing a headline $3.4 million presidential trip to a minister’s overseas visit that might show per‑diem totals in the low thousands conflates different accounting units. Diplomatic trip reporting often lists airfare, lodging and representation costs under standardized allowances, while presidential travel includes whole‑platform costs (airlift, presidential aircraft operating hours, unit personnel time and discrete security deployments) that are not itemized in per‑diem tables [3] [1]. Sources emphasize that the large portion of the golf totals is salaries and security logistics rather than simply hotel and meal bills [1].
4. Historical and comparative context: presidential golf is an outlier but not a blank slate
HuffPost’s projection compares the current pace to Trump’s first term ($151.5 million for golf travel during 2017–2021) and warns the second‑term pace could more than double that total if unchanged [1] [2]. Independent trackers and commentators produce a range of per‑outing estimates—some lower, some higher—illustrating methodological variance driven by which GAO or DoD figures are adjusted and how additional local transport is counted [10] [11].
5. Political debate and the limits of available reporting
Critics in Congress have seized on the large golf‑trip totals to argue inefficiency and lack of return on investment, citing specific trip estimates of $3.4 million to $4.2 million depending on added aircraft or days [6]. The White House response or internal breakdowns beyond HuffPost’s GAO‑based extrapolations are not included in the supplied results; available sources do not mention a detailed official, line‑by‑line accounting that reconciles GAO‑based trip‑cost averages with real‑time expenditures [1] [2].
6. What reporters and policy analysts should look for next
To move beyond headline comparisons, reporting should seek: (a) GAO or DoD line‑item breakdowns for presidential flights and security deployments tied to each weekend; (b) agency reconciliation showing what portions of presidential movement costs are unique versus routine; and (c) comparable aggregated totals for major diplomatic delegations that include security, military lift, and diplomatic representation expenses—data that the current set of sources does not provide in one place (available sources do not mention a consolidated dataset comparing these exact categories) [12] [1].
Limitations: this analysis relies on HuffPost‑sourced totals and related press coverage for the golf estimates and on federal travel‑regulation pages for how diplomatic trips are reimbursed; the sources do not provide a single official, comparable table that tallies presidential‑level security and transport alongside State Department delegation costs for apples‑to‑apples comparison [1] [3].