The Freight Recession Isn't Going Anywhere Now
Long-awaited relief was supposed to come to the logistics business this year. Then came Trump's trade war.
You may see fewer of these on the road.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Hulton Archive via Getty Images
There’s an old saying that all goods eventually get carried by a truck. Don’t forget that those goods also likely were hauled by ships and trains and stored in a warehouse. With that in mind, look to the logistics industry for some of the first clues of how the economy and the business world will deal with the new reality of a protectionist US that President Donald Trump has set in motion.
Although the reaction in the stock market to Trump’s bid to upend global trade by implementing historically high tariffs has been swift and extremely negative, it will take some time for the impacts to take hold on how goods and production capacity are shuffled around the world. Expect the Asia-US and Europe-US shipping routes to suffer a drop in demand, while Latin America, which mostly dodged the heftiest tariffs, enjoys an increase. A decline in freight demand that portends weak consumer spending and even recession will exacerbate the glut of shipping and trucking capacity that has hung over the industry since the height of the pandemic.