FIRST DRAFT LIVE: Cushman & Wakefield Senior Economist James Bohnaker On Tariffs, Turbulence And Turning Points
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Friday was President Donald Trump’s self-imposed deadline to reach a deal on tariffs, and he kicked it off by announcing that starting Aug. 7, the U.S. will impose a 10% universal levy on imported goods from countries with which it has a trade surplus and a 15% tariff on goods from the roughly 40 nations with which it has a trade deficit. A slew of specific country tariffs were announced, including 35% on Canada, a hugely important market for construction material imports.
What does this mean for commercial real estate? The industry has already been rocked by tariffs on steel, aluminum and manufactured goods — construction costs are up anywhere from 6% to 10% — and that was before the latest announcement. Now that the dust has settled and the future of tariffs is looking a little clearer, how will CRE react?
To answer this question and more, we spoke with Cushman & Wakefield Senior Economist James Bohnaker.
Bohnaker said that he expects some projects to be stalled or even abandoned altogether in response to the tariffs, but those will be the exception, not the rule.
“I think that for the most part, developers for projects that are already underway are going to try to make that work, but it is a very tight operating environment right now, and we’re just not seeing a lot of new development,” he said. “And I don’t think that we really break out of a slump here anytime in the next couple of months. I think that’s probably more of a 2026 recovery period.”
Watch the full conversation with Bohnaker here:
