US cement industry’s economic Forecast reflects uncertainty; recession still unlikely

The forecast was presented yesterday at the industry’s 2026 IEEE-IAS/ACA annual cement conference, held this year in Fort Lauderdale, FL. More than 1300 industry stakeholders from 32 countries registered for this year’s event, which is a new record for the technical conference.

In their Fall Forecast shared last November, ACA’s market analysts determined the economy was on an increasingly tenuous footing, but there was not a clear stimulus for the US to enter a recession. However, with the added, unpredicted start of the U.S.- Iran War in February, forecasters made a slight downward revision in their numbers. Despite this, the baseline forecast still does not expect the conflict to push the economy into a recession.

“A black swan event has come in the form of the conflict with Iran, and it’s clear the longer hostilities in the Middle East continue, the weaker the cement forecast becomes,” said Brian Schmidt, ACA’s Senior Director of Economic Policy and Analytics.

The war has produced a restive bond market, which has pushed up borrowing costs; the prevailing mortgage rate is roughly equivalent to what it was before the Fed began cutting rates last September. All of this implies another weak year for private construction. Yet, ACA’s expectations for the trajectory of cement consumption remain broadly unchanged for this year, while forecasters predict consumption will turn positive in 2027, despite growth being subdued by residual effects of 2026.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/the-americas/06052026/us-cement-industrys-economic-forecast-reflects-uncertainty-recession-still-unlikely/