President Donald Trump‘s Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, appeared on CNBC and echoed the language used by the President when speaking about tariffs and the building of new factories in the United States.
Lutnick said: “Now you’re gonna see factories getting built in America at a scale that you’ve never seen before. Okay, more than 10 trillion dollars of factory build coming. So there’s a huge amount of construction jobs.”
Speaking about those construction jobs on Newsmax, Lutnick foretold of a situation similar to money falling from trees, saying “to be a construction worker in America, you’re going to be good-looking, because everybody’s going to try to hire you. Those construction workers are jobs, jobs, jobs.”
He added: “I would say the first quarter of next year will be the best quarter of construction jobs this country has ever seen, and that’s gonna roll all the way through ’26. So I think you’re gonna see GDP growth next year over 4%.”
More than one X user responded to Lutnick’s prediction with pessimism. One with a clear memory chimed in that “Lutnick said we’d be seeing 3% growth this quarter, last quarter.”
Lutnick: “I would say the first quarter of next year will be the best quarter of construction jobs this country has ever seen, and that’s gonna roll all the way through ’26. So I think you’re gonna see GDP growth next year over 4%.” pic.twitter.com/yuDGBrTSMO
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 11, 2025
In July, Lutnick said that Trump’s tariffs and trade deals could create $300 to $400 billion of new economic opportunities, which he equated to as much as 1.5% in additional GDP growth.
In September, Bloomberg reported that the economic “power” Lutnick predicted was being “delayed” due to the uncertainty of Trump’s tariffs.
Note about construction employment: In 2023, during the Biden administration, U.S. construction employment reached an all-time high of 8.0 million—surpassing the previous peak employment level from 2006, which was about 7.7 million.
Prior to Trump’s return to the White House, partly as a result of funding provided in the bipartisan Biden-era Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported:
“The construction industry is projected to grow 4.7 percent from 2023 to 2033, faster than the 4.0 percent projected for all industries. This growth will result in the addition of about 380,100 new jobs—bringing the projected employment growth in the construction industry to nearly 8.4 million by 2033. Construction occupations related to these activities are also projected to see faster than average employment growth.”
The BLS projection also noted that the four fastest growing industries are all related to renewable power generation (utilities sector):
“Employment in solar electric power generation, wind electric power generation, other electric power generation, and geothermal electric power generation are all projected to increase by over 40 percent as the capacity of renewable electric power generation expands. Employment in solar and wind electric generation are projected to grow 275.9 percent and 115.1 percent, respectively, by 2033.”
In August 2025, President Trump said his administration will no longer approve or wind or solar power projects.
“We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” he wrote.