Sorry, the question seemed like one of those low effort "have you thought about just not building buildings, hmmmmm?" that requires more effort to address than it took to ask. That "combatative-without-seeming-combatitive-for-the-purpose-of-seeming-like-the-good-faith-one" hackernews pretend good faith socratic argument is what it read to me. Apologize if it wasn't the angle you were going for.

If the stated goal is jobs, the tariffs aren't doing it from what I can tell.

It seems to be hands have been put on the scales, and to call cancelling the building that would have otherwise been built due to market forces good needs some testing. If it were doctors offices in already served areas, sure, but these were not subsidized but lower end apartment buildings in NYC. I'm hoping the guys who were laid off moved to some other company rather than exiting the trade.