ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said construction is soft, manufacturing has been volatile, and consumers are being cautious, resulting in choppy market conditions. (Aziz Shamuratov/Getty Images)
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The freight market has remained choppy, with demand not demonstrating any clear patterns during the month of May, American Trucking Associations reported June 24.
The ATA For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index inched down 0.1% sequentially to 113.8 from 113.9 in April. The index also came in 1.3% below May 2024, marking the first year-over-year decrease in 2025. When not adjusting for seasonality, tonnage increased 2.9% sequentially to 116.2.
Also, the index was revised for April, from a sequential loss of 0.3% to a gain of 0.5%. ATA calculates its monthly tonnage index based on feedback from carriers hauling contract freight. In calculating the index, 100 represents 2015.
ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said the industry’s “seesaw freight demand pattern” is making it difficult to discern any clear trend in the market.
“Excluding the services economy — the largest part of economic activity — the goods market is all over the map, thus impacting freight levels,” Costello said, noting that construction is soft, manufacturing has been volatile, and consumers are being cautious.
ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said the seesaw pattern for freight has made it difficult to discern any clear trend in the market. (John Sommers II for Transport Topics)
“In advance of the tariffs, we know the businesses were stocking up, and you could see that in the tonnage at the ports, what was coming in,” said Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University. “Now that tariffs have started, you can see that the tonnage at the ports has dropped back to normal, even below normal.”
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President Donald Trump introduced sweeping tariffs against numerous countries April 2. The move was a major step in his plan that aims to renegotiate trade agreements to be more favorable for the U.S. The bulk of those tariffs have since been delayed until July 9 so that partner countries have a chance to reach new trade deals. China, which is of particular focus, is an exception, with its higher tariffs delayed until Aug. 12.
“If the deals don’t get done, you’re going to have that same muted start all over again,” Dhawan said. “Which also means that people are trying to get in their Christmas shopping imports right now before things go haywire again.”
Dhawan pointed out that the markets have started to adjust somewhat to all the uncertainty. But his biggest worry remains whether oil prices will shoot up because of the turmoil around the U.S. bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities. He warned higher oil prices pose a danger to the world economy.
“That is the one uncertainty on everything, whether you are buying stuff or shipping stuff, the cost of fuel, the cost of transportation, depends upon the price of oil,” Dhawan said. “And if that thing jumps up sharply, then that is going to be a problem independent of what else happens in the economy.”
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The Cass Freight Index found that May shipments decreased 4% year over year to 1.054 from 1.098 and sank 0.4% sequentially from 1.058 in April. The report noted that the trade war is having many effects, with some downsides being partly reflected in the data, including pre-tariff inventory stocking starting to turn into destocking.
“The indicators have been a little mixed,” said Jason Miller, interim chairman of the Department of Supply Chain Management at Michigan State University. “Cass shipments are down year over year. The trucking ton-mile index that I co-author is up year over year. But that’s really been driven more by, I’m going to say, the specialty side of things. So chemical production and wood products, etc. And that was only through April. But what it generally seems to feel like now is that the year is underperforming expectations.”
Miller recalled that the bulk of freight forecasts toward the end of last year were predicting a better 2025. Much of that was focused on rates seeing an improved trajectory, but that upturn has yet to materialize because of shifting trade policies.
“A lot of it really is, it’s just a direct effect of tariffs,” Miller said. “We’ve seen data from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, all pointing that the tariffs that have been imposed have curtailed capital investment.”
Miller believes this also has led to unexpected weakness in the housing market. His own report showed that seasonally adjusted single-family housing starts are down 7% despite optimism around interest-rate cuts and 10-year yields making it cheaper for builders to finance. He pointed out that housing construction leads to more freight.
“You got to factor in you need carpets, you need windows, you need shingles, you need large appliances, you need drywall, and all of these things,” Miller said. “So the fact that side of the economy is still not performing well certainly would help explain why we haven’t seen, I’d really say the usual seasonal tightening we see at this time of year.”
