It’s no longer abstract. After a year of contractors warning that 50% tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper would land on jobsite cost sheets, the data has caught up. Construction input prices ran at a 12.6% annualized rate in the first months of 2026, the fastest pace since the 2022 supply-chain shock, and the metal lines are doing most of the lifting.
Where the pressure shows up
Steel mill products are up more than 20% year over year. Aluminum mill shapes are up 33%. The 50% finished-metal tariff is paired with a 25% duty on derivative products substantially made from those metals, which catches a wide band of fabricated assemblies the original rule didn’t reach. Curtainwall panels, electrical raceway, embedded plates, structural steel decking and roofing all sit inside that derivative band, and quotes against those items have moved on a weekly basis since January.
Structural-steel jobs are running 15-25% above early-2025 budgets. Aluminum-heavy projects, like curtainwall-clad commercial towers, are taking the worst of it. The National Association of Home Builders has put the residential cost-add at roughly $30 billion industry-wide, which translates to about $17,500 per new home, a number that has been politically loud in markets where median single-family prices are already past the affordability ceiling.
How estimators are responding
The AGC’s tariff working group has been pushing a short list of contract changes: include or strengthen escalation clauses, narrow the lookback window on material indices to 90 days, lock metal procurement before notice-to-proceed where the schedule allows, and shift to FOB-mill purchasing on bigger packages. Owners with optional scope are deferring it. Several large commercial backers have asked design teams to substitute structural systems where the value engineering checks out, including light-gauge framing for low-rise and hybrid mass-timber-and-steel for mid-rise, to take metal pounds off the budget.
Subs have a problem the contracts don’t fully solve. Quoting fixed prices on a project that won’t break ground for six months has gotten close to impossible at the smaller end of the trade pool. Trade contractors that historically held quotes for 30 days are dropping that window to 7-10 days or pricing in 10-15% cushion. Owners that don’t want to absorb that cushion are accepting more open-book material handling.
What to watch next
The first big test is the next round of CMAR pre-construction GMPs. Several owners that locked design intent in late 2025 are about to receive bids that bake in the full tariff impact for the first time. If those GMPs come in 10-15% over budget, expect a second wave of redesigns or descopes through the summer, and a corresponding pullback in starts that the Dodge Momentum Index has already started to flag.