Even with President Trump’s 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for most trading partners, many analysts still believe his trade policies are steering the U.S. economy toward a recession.
Tariffs remain at a baseline 10% for most countries and a staggering 145% for China — a setup that’s widely expected to slow growth and push inflation higher.
Even Trump appears to be anticipating a downturn.
The president “privately acknowledged that his trade policy could trigger a recession but said he wanted to be sure it didn’t cause a depression,” The Wall Street Journal reported, citing that concern as one reason behind Wednesday’s sudden reversal on tariffs.
While a recession would spell trouble for most U.S. companies, Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood sees opportunity, particularly in those companies helping businesses become more efficient.
One of her top picks is Palantir (PLTR), an AI-powered software firm that helps clients analyze and deploy data at scale.
“When businesses and consumers are scared, they’ll change the way they do things,” Wood told Barron’s. “And that’s usually good for the companies that are helping others do things better, cheaper, faster, more creatively, and more productively.”
She added that Palantir “will be one of the biggest beneficiaries as companies try and make themselves more efficient and move into the AI age.”
Why Palantir sees disruption as a tailwind, not a threat
Palantir may work with commercial clients, but a large chunk of its revenue still comes from the U.S. government — a once-reliable cash cow now under pressure as Trump doubles down on sweeping cost cuts."
Led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the administration has vowed to slash trillions from federal spending. But Palantir’s leadership doesn’t seem worried.
“I think DOGE is going to bring meritocracy and transparency to the government, and that’s exactly what our commercial business is,” said CTO Shyam Sankar on the company’s February earnings call. “The commercial market is meritocratic and transparent, and you see the results we have in that sort of environment. That’s the basis of our optimism.”
Sankar also pointed to government inefficiency as Palantir’s real competitor, referencing his January testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.
“The work we’ve done in government — it’s deeply operational, it’s deeply valuable,” he said. “We’re pretty excited about exceptional engineers getting in there under the hood and being able to see that for a change.”
Meanwhile, CEO Alex Karp described the Trump-era disruption as a net positive for Palantir.
“Disruption exposes things that aren’t working,” he said. “We love disruption, and whatever is good for America will be good for Americans — and very good for Palantir.”
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