The for-hire truckload sector, the largest in the $387 billion overall trucking market, is bracing for fallout from Trump administration tariffs on foreign goods.
Logistics firm J.B. Hunt Transport Services, the nation’s largest TL carrier, sits at what Barron’s called “the heart of the trade war,” working at ports and taking goods across the country. Despite record volumes out of the West Coast ports, J.B. Hunt management refrained from suggesting “pull forward” as the primary driver of its intermodal volume growth in late spring.
According to a TD Cowen Rail survey, 44% of shippers pulled freight ahead of tariffs when they were announced last March. About 40% of West Coast imports come from China, and Cowen estimated Hunt’s direct China West Coast exposure to be about 12% of its overall volume.
“Still too many boxes and not enough freight,” analyst David Vernon, a Bernstein private wealth manager wrote in a note to investors. “The freight recession simply shows no sign of easing,” he added.
In the coming weeks and months, meaningful declines in intermodal volumes will result from tariff impacts, which in turn could place even more mix pressure on reported intermodal yields, according to Cowen.
It was a similar outlook for Knight-Swift Transportation, the nation’s 2nd-largest TL carrier. Knight missed some analysts’ first-quarter earnings, and Cowen analysts expect profit margins to stay “relatively flat” for the first half.
TD Cowen analysts say that the TL contractual bid season has “incrementally worsened” since earlier this year while elevated costs remain for most TL carriers.
“Our customers are expressing more concern around cost impacts of tariffs and less concern regarding demand from their customers,” said Knight-Swift CEO Adam Miller on a recent earnings call.
Knight-Swift is “actively working” to reduce costs in its network and scale down its fleet to meet demand. “This is encouraging given the potential for volumes to take a significant step down in the coming months due to tariffs,” Cowen analysts predict.
Conversations with suppliers and customers resulted in a muddied outlook for the carrier Werner Enterprises. During a recent earnings call, CEO Derek Leathers also reported seeing “stop and go” activity by shippers from tariff-induced uncertainty.
But Werner, the nation’s 6th-largest TL carrier, said it expects any short-term tariff impact to be manageable and is confident supply chains won’t shift overnight.
Cowen analysts call the truckload TL market “consistently weak,” as they reported significant TL pricing recovery will likely take “multiple bid seasons” from these levels. “We believe widely anticipated second-half overhang could present a challenging setup for early 2026 bid season,” they say
Truck manufacturers are getting the message: fewer new trucks. Volvo recently trimmed its North American Class 8 heavy truck forecast by 25,000 as market uncertainty has roiled trucking.
In a recent TD Cowen survey of economic indicators in trucking, some 15% of carriers surveyed say that they’re considering exiting the market—that’s 3 percentage points higher than in the previous quarter. “Capacity has been very slow to exit the market.”
