US manufacturing construction is falling under Trump’s second term
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CHART 1 • US manufacturing construction is falling under Trump’s second term
Industrial policy is supposed to leave concrete behind. The awkward signal in US manufacturing is that the building boom peaked before Trump’s second term and has been sliding since.
The FT chart below uses Census data to show private manufacturing construction falling from its 2024 high. FRED’s April 2026 series also points lower, with manufacturing construction spending down from the start of the year.
That does not mean every factory promise is fake. Chips and defence can still attract investment. It does mean the broad reshoring story deserves less triumphalism: tariffs and announcements are not the same as permits, financing and finished plants.
Source: Financial Times
The manufacturing chart is sharp because it punctures the easiest political story. Announcements are cheap compared with buildings, and the US economy is full of places where rhetoric is outrunning lived reality.
Paid subscribers get access to the other four charts: Kevin Warsh’s shorter Fed statement, investors hiding from chip-stock turbulence, Maine and Vermont’s home-price surge and US adults expecting deeper political division. Together, they show a US economy where confidence, affordability and trust are harder to rebuild than headlines suggest.
