On April 1, 2025, Paul Levin was quoted by Athletic Business regarding the impact of the administration’s tariffs on the construction industry.
According to the article, President Trump intends to impose tariffs on imported goods, which will greatly impact the construction industry.
When asked about the impact raised tariffs would have on construction, Levin discussed the effect on contracts, saying that he sees the uncertainty shifting contract negotiations. “A lot of the negotiations on the construction side are about risk and pricing of risk, and pricing of timing,” he said. “The more uncertainty we have, the more that pushes contracts in different ways.”
Levin outlined two common approaches for contracts: fixed-price contracts, where contractors assume greater risk but build in a cushion for uncertainties, or cost-plus contracts, where owners bear the pricing risk but potentially avoid hefty risk premiums.
“Either way you do it, I think you’re going to get big increases in prices,” Levin predicted. “If contractors are going to agree to a fixed price, they’ve got to have a lot more cushion in there today than they did in the past. The thing you don’t know about becomes the monster in a lot of ways” he said.
Looking ahead, Levin cautions that it is important for professionals in the industry to communicate. “From my perspective, we want to use whatever visibility we have to better understand the road ahead, so we don’t have an issue later on,” Levin said.
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