Geopolitical Chaos Continues to Roil Trucking Industry
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The trucking industry is wrestling with an unclear market trajectory forged through a combination of chaotic geopolitical negotiations and enduring market weakness, a situation for which experts see no clear end date.
“There are different aspects to it,” Chairman Eric Starks said. “There’s the equipment side and then there’s the freight side.”
President Donald Trump has extended to Aug. 1 the deadline for a series of tariff negotiations with some countries and instituted new tariffs against others. He entered office this year as trucking was struggling to emerge from an extended downturn, but his noncommittal approach to trade policy combined with escalation of conflicts abroad has contributed to downstream effects on the industry and complicated the ability of businesses and industry watchers to forecast.
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“If unprecedented was the word for logistics during the pandemic, uncertainty is the word that rules the market today,” said Jim Mancini, vice president of customer success at C.H. Robinson Worldwide. “Shippers and carriers alike were holding their breath waiting for the presidential election and for the trajectory of inflation and interest rates to play out. At the time, it looked like 2025 would be the year of the trucking market recovery because there would at least be some certainty.”
Instead, Mancini said the industry has struggled with uneven port volumes and uncertainty among shippers; the latter is tougher for trucking, he said, as it makes it hard for the industry to make long-term decisions.
C.H. Robinson ranks No. 2 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of logistics companies and No. 20 on the TT Top 50 list of global freight companies.
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“Domestically, we had the expectation that we would’ve already turned the corner and that freight would be ticking up by now, and that was before all of the tariff stuff,” Starks said. Instead, he noted companies have been biding their time as the freight market remains stubbornly flat. So far, Starks said, he hasn’t seen any indications of a market jump-start, nor any signs it will sink dramatically further.
“We just have people waiting to get clarity on what the situation looks like,” he said. “People sitting back [starts] to slowly deteriorate the general market conditions, and then people get spooked even more.”
“If you were certain that you were going to have high tariffs and they were going to be in place for a long time, you could make longer-term decisions,” said John Lash, group vice president of product strategy at E2open. “But because there is no certainty on whether we’re going to have tariffs in a month — is this all going to go and disappear? What’s really the end game?”
[Shippers are] frozen in terms of, ‘Should I invest more money? Should I spend more money? Should I hire more people?’ In fact, they’re doing the reverse, which is cutting costs, budgeting for the worst-possible-case scenario.
Dean Croke,principal analyst at DAT Freight & Analytics
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Trump proclaimed April 2 as “Liberation Day” for the U.S. with the adoption of a spate of tariffs that were a starting point for negotiations on updated trade agreements. A series of delays and short-term deals have since led to an unsettled environment defined by companies being reactive and holding off on big decisions, Lash said.
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“When headlines are signaling uncertainty, we need to be more certain to help our customers,” noted Roadrunner Freight CEO Chris Jamroz. “Most of the headlines do not impact freight volumes or industry capacity, at least not in any immediately knowable way. We have discussions with customers about possible scenarios that could play out.”
Roadrunner ranks No. 78 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of for-hire carriers and No. 19 on the LTL list.
“I would use the analogy of sheltering in place because that’s what it feels like shippers are doing,” said Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Freight & Analytics. “They’re frozen in terms of, ‘Should I invest more money? Should I spend more money? Should I hire more people?’ In fact, they’re doing the reverse, which is cutting costs, budgeting for the worst-possible-case scenario.”
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Croke had earlier expected seasonal springtime demand to re-emerge and normalize the freight market, but now he worries that freight is diving back into recession territory. He noted that dry van spot rates recently flipped negative after 10 months of tepid but positive performance — a potential indicator of another freight recession.
“Liberation Day kind of tanked all of those expectations,” Croke said. “Q1 is always quiet, and Q2 [are] your makeup months. When that didn’t happen, it kind of put carriers behind the eight ball and meant that they’re just going to have to play catch-up for the rest of the year.”
