Tariffs, AI, and the Smell of Recession

I don’t spend my days at the country club or hanging out in boardrooms. I’m a business development guy in concrete construction. That means I’m chasing projects, knocking on doors, and keeping our name out there. If I end up on a golf course, it’s only because a client expects me to be there. Truth is, I’d rather be in a duck blind with them—because that’s where real conversations happen.

And lately, those conversations all sound the same: everything costs more and projects are slowing down.

Groceries are up. Electricity bills are up. The trip to the store feels heavier, and not just because of the cart. That same inflation shows up in our business. Steel, aluminum, copper—tariffs have piled on top of already high material prices. The government told us foreign countries would feel the pinch. They don’t. We do. The homeowner building a new house pays. The contractor trying to pour a slab pays. And the guy buying groceries on the way home pays.

AGC has been waving the flag that material lines like steel and aluminum spiked right after tariffs doubled. ABC reports construction input costs are still nearly 40% higher than they were before 2020—and moving higher again. Try explaining to a client why their bid just jumped. They don’t want to hear about tariffs or global markets. They just know the number doesn’t match what they budgeted.

Here’s the kicker: the only thing keeping work steady right now is data centers. Everything else—offices, retail, residential—is slowing down. Even industrial has cracks showing. ABC’s backlog numbers are hanging in there, but that’s because server farms are propping them up. It’s not sustainable. When one sector holds the whole table up, eventually the legs start to wobble.

Meanwhile, the stock market is whistling past the graveyard. The S&P 500 is being held up by the same ten names: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta, NVIDIA, Broadcom, Tesla, Berkshire, and one or two others. Eight or nine of those are riding the AI wave. That means the health of the “market” really comes down to a handful of tech bets. It’s fragile, and it’s exactly what we saw during the dot-com era. Everyone felt rich—until they weren’t.

And then there’s Intel. The U.S. government just bought a 10% stake to keep their foundry dreams alive. We’ve seen this before. GM. The banks in 2008. Whenever Washington starts buying stock, it isn’t because things are going great—it’s because things are coming apart.

Lyn Alden calls this environment “tighter fiscal, looser monetary.” What it feels like is Washington trying to fight a five-alarm fire with a garden hose. Tariffs raise costs, debt keeps climbing, the Fed can’t stop printing, and regular people are left holding the bill.

From my side of the fence, here’s what it looks like:

• Clients are stalling. They don’t want to move forward with shaky numbers.

• Data centers are carrying the industry. But even they’re running into power constraints.

• The stock market looks like a house of cards. AI names make it look strong, but it’s an illusion.

• Everyday life costs more. Groceries, power, kids’ sports, even eating out—it all takes a bigger chunk of the paycheck.

I’m not trying to be dramatic, but I’ve been around construction long enough to know what late-cycle feels like. This feels late-cycle. You don’t need an economist to tell you what the people buying groceries, paying utility bills, and trying to lock in a construction loan already know: we’re heading toward recession.

Until then, I’ll keep doing what I do—chasing projects, building relationships, and, when I can, finding a client who’d rather spend a morning in the duck blind than on the golf course. Because that’s where the real talk happens.