The only thing propping up the European financial markets at this point is that the SCOTUS has not definitively ruled on Trump's tariffs.
— Tom Luongo (@TFL1728) February 10, 2026
Every day that they don't issue a final judgment is another day where the odds of them overturning them drop. The amount of damage it… https://t.co/BfqpfxtJ4B
Things are as significant right now in freight. It has been a monumental market for trucking companies. We're seeing significant tightness. We get a lot of channel checks. A lot of folks message me that are talking about how shippers are responding to this and really struggling to find capacity right now. This is, I think, a significant turn of events. We know that capacity has been tightening due to the compliance crackdown. The barriers to entry are quickly going away and I think that's a very, very positive development regardless of what happens in volume. But one of the things in volume that I think is really important is we are saying significant increases in freight demand on a year-over-year basis. Currently truckload volumes on a year-over-year basis are up 8%, that is actually quite significant. What is even more interesting is that it's not what you would expect it to be. Imports are actually not really participating in this volume surge. It's happening in the Rust Belt, the traditional industrial Midwest which is really focused on auto and heavy machinery is where we're seeing it. We're not seeing it at the ports; in fact, we're not even seeing it in places like Ontario, California, the Inland Empire, which really is where importers bring in their product and store it until they put it into their distribution centers of the rest of the country. We're seeing volumes in Ontario, California down 17%. I think that's related to the fact that importers didn't bring in an enormous amount of inventory over the last couple of months, and had been just focusing on draining what they have. Perhaps waiting for the Supreme Court decision that is expected to rule on Donald Trump's legality of tariffs. But regardless, we are seeing the industrial Midwest, the Rust Belt part of the country, really perform. And I think this is the reason that this Market feels quite different than the ones we felt in the last couple of years.
Imports have been driving the Freight Market really since the last decade or so and even during Trump's first Administration we saw a massive surge of imports. During COVID it was also a massive surge of imports. We saw some Auto resilience happen at the latter parts of COVID largely related to the Inflation Reduction Act but last year the auto market was actually quite weak. Industrial Machinery was quite weak. We're starting to see that come back in places like Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis, Detroit, Kansas City, Cleveland are actually outperforming significantly on a year-over-year basis than any other parts of the country. They're gaining significant market share, and that tells me that this particular rally is all about the re-industrialization that Donald Trump's policies have been trying to pursue. Now because imports aren't participating in the rally, does that mean that they're out? Absolutely not. I think once we get resolution and a Supreme Court decision, and even if we don't get that by mid-year, which I think most people expect that we will, I still think we'll see a resurgence of imports come in to the second half of the year. Retailers will need to replenish those inventories, which are actually quite low right now. So this is all very good news for truckers. It's the middle mile and the last mile that are outperforming it's retail and it's the Industrials, which I think is a very welcome sign for the Freight Market. And we'll wait to see what imports do in the second half of the year, but right now they're just not a factor and I think that's a really positive sign for the overall health of the Freight Market and the industrial economy.
