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👀And so it begins...

I enthusiastically supported Trump's victory in the November election. I thought I was voting for pro-business policies and small, targeted, and incremental tariffs that would encourage the production of strategic industries to return to the Americas. I.e., what we got in the first Administration. I did not vote for a neutron bomb to wipe out supply chains and small businesses 100 days in.

Welcome to the hotel China, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

Many truckers I've spoken with don't realize how quickly container volumes have collapsed. Starting in May, port freight out of California will be almost eliminated. Its going to be a bloodbath in dray, followed by intermodal, and then a collapse in I-20 & I-40 trucking.

Alan Greenspan used to track cardboard boxes and trucking volumes as a barometer of the US economy. Cardboard and package materials have dropped to 2015 levels. 1/

An insurance executive told me that he expects new trucking and brokerage policies will forbid hiring non domiciled CDLs. “It’s all over.”

For the past 3 years, many trucking companies have been running at or below breakeven. But at least, there has been enough freight to generate cash flow to keep them alive. That won't be the case in the coming few weeks. There won't be enough freight to haul at any price. We are anticipating a large number of bankruptcies. The Great Purge is about to climax.

Trump just nuked Temu and Shein It will now cost $75 per postal item. On June 1, it will go to $150 per postal item.

Update: I bought my 16 yr old son a tiny e-comm biz on Microacquire. He and I spend about 8 hrs per wk working on biz together (after school/wknds). Purchase price: $10k on Jan 1, 2023 Revenue in 22: $6k Revenue YTD already: $6200 Profit YTD: $1400 Experience: Priceless

Oh Canada! The ships that were headed to Seattle are now moving to Vancouver.

Import volumes will start drying up the first week of May. Companies tied to imports: port operators, truckers, warehouses, forwarders, and railroads will all struggle. Layoffs the following week. POTUS needs to declare victory by mid-next week, or we will be looking at a doomsday scenario for West Coast supply chain workers. The logistics industry employs 8 million people in the US.

First thing you discover when you move to Texas is that it is not a low tax state.

Apollo predicts a recession (and stagflation) coming to the US by June with mass layoffs in trucking and retail

Trucking company commits one of the most horrific accidents caught on dashcam in history. Firm shutters the old brand and will likely bankrupt that entity. Relaunches as a new one, a week later, with same trucks and drivers under a new operating authority. This is only permitted because of the spineless actions at the FMCSA.

I worry that Trump has backed himself into a corner with 104% tariffs. China is going to respond with additional retaliation. This is a country that shut off their entire economy and did military-style lockdowns during COVID. Way too much, too fast.

I did CPR on a 12-yr old that was in a jet ski accident. Two jet skis collided in mid air, riding the wake off our boat. We stopped the boat. I jumped in the water and pulled her to the boat, she was dead. Eyes rolled back in her head. I began CPR and cracked her ribs in the process. A few moments into the CPR her heart started again and she was flown via helicopter to the hospital. She was in a a coma for 3 months, but ended up living with some small cognitive challenges. Miraculously, I had taken my CPR training about a month before this incident.

Trucking has been in my family since the 1960’s. We’ve lived through multiple cycles: Trucking deregulation, oil crisis, stagflation, the S&L collapse, Gulf War, Sept 11, and the financial crisis. I’ve spoken to dozens of trucking veterans with 40+ years of experience - almost all agree. This is the worst freight market in their lifetime.

23-year trucking veteran and DOT consultant recommends that all CDLs should be issued by USDOT, eliminating the states involvement altogether.

This a chart of freight demand for the US contract truckload market. March 8 was the "cliff" in freight demand. Its unlike anything we've seen before. Rapid deterioration in national freight demand. Spring is usually one of the best times.

A large transportation company told me today that shippers are now refusing to load or receive any non-compliant driver because ICE is showing up at their warehouses and doing onsite raids. Of all the things that I've heard over the last few days, this one seemed like it might be the most significant development in the Compliance Crunch.

We built the atomic bomb in 4 years. We can handle refining rare earths

The freight market is experiencing a severe recession and bloodbath. Here is a round-up of the doom and gloom headlines that have occurred in one of the worst downturns in freight market history. Full articles and ongoing coverage on FreightWaves. 1/🧵

Consumers are out of money

Trucking lawyer advises all trucking companies and brokers to cease working with all non-domiciled CDLs immediately. In his view, plantiffs attorneys will scorch any broker or carrier for hiring an illegitimate driver that uses these drivers.

Just signed an LOI to purchase my 16-year-old a tiny eCommerce business on Microacquire. This is going to be more educational than anything he will learn in school.

Trucking volumes out of Los Angeles are equivalent to Thanksgiving and close to Christmas. Thanksgiving and Christmas are typically the lowest volume days of the year. Truckers should avoid taking freight to Southern Cal, else risk having to deadhead back to Dallas to get loaded.

The warnings from public trucking companies, including LTL providers, tells us that the Trade War is about to take a massive toll on the economy. Most Americans are blissfully ignorant that Main Street activity has sharply down shifted.

The economy is in far worse shape than most realize

I was at a fundraiser tonight for the local hospital. Spoke with dozens of business owners, many had different stories about how tariffs are impacting their business: 1 - Logistics exec: "One of our big box customers has stopped taking new imports from China altogether." 2 - Community banker: "We are requiring all home builders to bring more equity due to higher anticipated costs. This will have a big impact on new home builds later in the year." 3 - Wholesale distributor: "Overseas suppliers have changed payment terms, requiring payment up front. They've had so many US orders refuse to take delivery due to tariffs, now they view US customers as a credit risk." 4 - Toy retailer: "A large number of our domestic suppliers have cancelled all incoming containers and are not placing new orders until they get some direction, which will impact this coming holiday season. Toys will be in short supply all over the country." 5 - Staffing in manufacturing: "We had a lot of momentum coming in this year. Our manufacturing clients have mostly paused all new placements. We are talking hundreds of would-be jobs that have disappeared." 6 - Investment banker: "We had several deals in process that have stalled, including one large ($300M+) transaction that fell apart literally on the day of closing. The private equity fund got cold feet." 7 - Hospital exec: "We have a few months of inventory of PPE available. We can't pass on price increases, because most of our prices are fixed with the carriers. We aren't placing orders for anything that comes from China."

The Chinese have developed containers that will launch attack drone swarms that they plan to use against the US in the event of a war. These containers will be placed on commercial ships from China to the US.

80 %+ of the trucking industry voted for Trump, but they will also be among the first victims of the trade war.

If I interview someone that asks about "Work-life balance", I move on.

Over the next decade, China will lose its status as the world's manufacturing hub, while America will retain its status as the global reserve currency. Supply chains are going to reorientate away from China and back towards North America.

Domestic freight out of LA is at the weakest levels (seasonally adjusted) it has been since 2020. Up till now, the "Liberation day tariffs" have not been a factor in declining volumes out of S. Cal. It is going to get worse.

If true, this suggests that the Big Box retailers anticipate (or know) that tariffs with China are in for a quick reset in the coming days or weeks.

I wrote a letter to my wife outlining everything she needs to know about our finances, investments, and business if I were to pass suddenly. In bold letters (3x times) I wrote “do not pay off the mortgage early, no matter what.” We have a 30-year at 2.68%. She’s far better off keeping the cash invested than paying off the mortgage. Mortgages are among the cheapest form of financing you can get and the rate we have will likely never be cheaper. There are tax advantages to mortgages as well. Even if our mortgage rate was 6%, I’d feel the same.

The 2nd largest port in the US is expecting container volumes to drop by 40% YoY, starting this coming Friday.

For those who say Trump has no plan, I strongly recommend reading the November 2024 white paper by Dr. Stephen Miran, the Chairman of Trump's Council of Economic Advisors. This is the playbook.

This is where all the freight has gone...

Fatality rates involving heavy-duty trucks have increased by 40% over the past decade. Culprit: the elimination of training standards and issuance of a CDL to anyone.

200 employee trucking company files for bankruptcy Trade recession going to take down a number of carriers

We are now hearing reports of immigrant truckers ditching their trucks on the side of the highway and calling the owners to tell them where to pick them up.

I was speaking with a member of the Fed staff today who brought up the truckers with “no name given” on their CDL. Fed data officials have become increasingly aware that there isn’t a truck driver shortage. The Fed is concerned that cheap, below market labor has had on truck drivers, denying upward mobility for so many - especially for black and America born Hispanics. Crazy that the work of a few, using an app that was vibe coded in AI to identity fraud, has shifted Washington’s awareness of the plight of American truckers. All thanks to X.

There will be a surge of trucking bankruptcies over the next year. Many of the small and midsize truckers hired non-domiciled CDLs and drivers without work permits. The Administration's outlawing of this practice will put these carriers into bankruptcy. The carriers hired these drivers because they would take the job at rates much cheaper than their American counterparts. With the pipeline of drivers closing, most of these carriers will not survive. Without considering driver wages, the operating cost for truckers on a per mile basis is up more than 40% over the past 5 years, but rates are down nearly $.30/mile. Most miles that carriers run in this market is at a loss. To survive, many mid-sized operators hired these illegal truckers. It was permitted because the government looked the other way and created an endless pipeline by issuing CDLs to truckers who had a commercial drivers license from another country, without ever having to pass a CDL test in the US or even have a work permit. With the pipeline of cheap labor shuttering and having to pay more, their days are numbered. Chart: National truckload rate per mile

30,000 employees will likely be laid off next week when Yellow, the 3rd largest trucking company in the US, shutters its doors after nearly 100 years. RIP Yellow, Roadway, USF, NewPenn

We've all been lied to. The American Truck Association (ATA) told Congress and the public that there was an endless truck driver shortage. During COVID, when supply chains got overwhelmed, the State and Federal governments felt pressure to solve this perceived "truck driver shortage" by lowering the standards for who could drive a heavy duty truck, how CDL training was conducted, and who the states could issue licenses to. This opened up the floodgates for immigrants that did not understand our language, rules, and had very little experience, compounded with no formal training. Now, the highways are far less safe and the trucking industry has become an economic disaster zone due to this lie. The ATA should have told the truth - the capacity crunch that happened during COVID was only temporary and the "driver shortage" was a short-term phenomena, easily addressed by carriers offering new incentives and higher pay for American truck drivers. They didn't. New entrants poured into the industry, using older, often unmaintained + unsafe trucks. These same players were willing to drive for 18-20 hr. days, nearly double what is legally permitted. Our highways became far less safe. American truck drivers, the heartbeat of the supply chain, were stripped of their livelihood as a result of cheap labor. This caused the Great Freight Recession, the deepest freight recession in history. To fend of bankruptcy, more and more motor carriers joined in and started hiring cheap immigrant labor that didn't care about the consequences of breaking the law. Things got far worse. Family owned trucking firms going back generations, operating legitimately, were wiped out because they couldn't compete with these bottom feeders that didn't play by the rules. All because the ATA lied to the American public. There is no perpetual truck driver shortage, the ATA just wanted a cheap labor pool to draw from rather than paying truckers more.

I bought my 16 year-old son a small e-commerce business for $10k on Acquire.com. We work on it after school. It did $6k in revenue before we purchased it in January and it just passed the $50k mark.

Trucking freight volumes, a signal for the goods economy are a dumpster fire right now (-17% YoY)

Trucking volumes down 8.3% month over month... We are approaching COVID low levels in trucking. The market continues to stall.

Our Disney World host pointing out the light crowds, “notice how empty the park is compared to a year ago?” Tells me that attendance is down 14% YoY, almost all international visitors.

Bankruptcy reports are accelerating… That’s 5 trucking bankruptcy reports this week. The Great Purge continues

The trucking industry has experienced one of the biggest recessions in history. The primary cause: too much trucking capacity. One of the sources of capacity are the surge of unregistered and illegal motor carriers. One of the major sources of illegal motor carriers come from Mexico. The Mexican motor carrier crosses the US border, to deliver freight manufactured goods under USMCA. Once they cross over, they deliver the load to the US address (still legal), but then illegally secure another truckload from a broker that goes between two points in the United States (this is where the motor carrier becomes illegal). Under cabotage rules, Mexican motor carriers are not allowed to carry truckloads between two U.S. addresses. Mexican motor carriers often undercut US truckers, but the driver can make 2-3x what he would make in Mexico for doing the same work.

As a libertarian, I was always been pro immigration and have an enormous amount of empathy for people that are born in very poor and unstable countries. I know how fortunate I am to be born in America. But over the past few years, my perspective has changed. I've seen what unrestricted immigration has done to the trucking industry and how it has destroyed the livelihood of millions of veteran American truck drivers. It has made the trucking industry an economic wasteland and made it impossible for legit operators to make a profit and survive.

It’s not a silent recession. It’s just that the stock market, Fed, Administration, and Congress are so disconnected from Main Street that they have zero idea that the economy is crumbling. And because of this disconnect, it means that there is no rescue package coming.

Cleveland, Ohio is experiencing one of the most significant YoY trucking volume drops of major manufacturing cities. Down 35% YoY.

If you didn’t think AI was a bubble before, here is your proof

Founded by Abraham Lincoln, Union Pacific has higher operating margins than Microsoft, Apple, and Google and will likely outlast them all.

I used to get about 4-5 hours of sleep per night. I tried everything - melatonin, CBD, exercise, and showers before bed. It never made much of a difference. I also tried Ambien,Tylenol PM, and NyQuil on occasions, but hated how I felt the next morning. A few weeks ago, I started taking Magnesium Glycinate and I’ve been getting 7-9 hours each night. It’s the deepest sleep I’ve had in years.

A Taylor Swift concert is a combination of music concert and broadway play costing over $100M. Ever wonder what the logistics is for the one of the most expensive concert tours in history? 1/

The DOT Secretary pushes back on a reporter who claims there is a truck driver shortage. He understands what happened: low cost labor destroyed the economics of the trucking industry and made it impossible for compliant carriers to compete.

Hold on to your hat. The bottom is about to fall out of the trucking market. The consumers that receive SNAP benefits have the highest velocity of money in the goods economy. During COVID, we were able to see the near immediate impact on freight demand driven by consumers receiving government assistance. Its shocking how much government assistance drives freight demand.

Truckers say the same thing

Quarterly earnings

The freight market has been sending flashing warning signs since mid February. But since the stock market has been rallying and government data has been wrong, no one has noticed the collapse in the Main Street economy.

The Mag7 have driven 60% of the S&P 500 gains in 2025. Combined, these firms employ just 1.6m Americans. The logistics, construction, manufacturing, auto, and energy sectors employ 38m Americans and are giving off recession-vibes. These jobs are at risk as the economy deteriorates. The stock market is not the economy.

Truckers should avoid taking loads to Southern California until further notice. Trucking freight out of Southern California is already running at multi-year lows, and mid-week is when the tariff volume collapse will first be felt at the ports. Container volumes at the S Cal ports are on track to decline by a third compared to last year. Your chances of staying loaded are far greater east of I-35.

The most dangerous time to fly in an airplane? Right after an annual inspection (this isn't just my opinion; it's well documented, but here is my experience). Every year, an aircraft must complete an annual. A certified mechanic must inspect the airplane and ensure everything is in working order. This seems like a great way to ensure safety, but it also creates a dangerous situation for the pilot. Every part of the airplane undergoes some level of inspection. Fluids are changed, the engine is inspected, spark plugs are replaced, fuses are removed, etc. Mechanics make mistakes when working on the airplane and can inadvertently do something that puts the airplane and pilot at risk. I've only had two dangerous mechanical issues in my life, both were right after annual inspections (two different airplanes). One time, I was landing, and my brakes failed. Luckily, I was landing on a 6000-ft runway with a gentle slope. The gravity was enough for me to bleed off the speed and come to a stop. The culprit: The mechanic used the wrong brake fluid during my annual inspection a few weeks prior. The second time, a different airplane (today). My gear wouldn't retract. The fuse controlling the gear was blown. I replaced it with an extra one that came with the plane but it also failed. I flew around texting with the factory mechanic, diagnosing the problem. We determined that the fuse that controlled the landing gear was undersized and would fail every time. I found a larger fuse that controlled another part of the plane (not crucial for landing), removed it, and put it back in place to lower the gear. It worked. Gear down. Crisis averted. The culprit: The airplane just completed its annual inspection. The mechanic inadvertently put an undersized fuse in the panel, controlling the landing gear. Two different airplanes. Two different mechanics. Two different incidents, both of which could have been catastrophic. The only thing they had in common was that the airplanes had just undergone annual inspections, and the mechanics made small mistakes.

Today, I spoke with a 35-year manufacturer of radio switching equipment (radios that go into all sorts of remote-controlled products). Nearly all of their components are sourced from China, assembled and programmed in the US, and then shipped back to China for assembly by their OEM customers. The tariffs are threatening to wipe out their business, and the only competitors that offer this specific type of switching equipment are located in China. Their supply chain process: 1. A 145% tariff on components from China (since everything they source is made in China, there are no US suppliers). 2. Their product is assembled and programmed in the US 3. 125% tariff from the US to China (China has retaliated against US tariffs). 4. Their switching technology is integrated into OEM final assembly in China for shipment worldwide. They have frozen all shipments of components, effectively shutting down future operations. Their competitors do not pay any of the US tariffs for components or the Chinese tariffs when their switches are returned to China for final assembly, as their competitors handle all programming and assembly in China. This manufacturer has never been price-competitive with Chinese switching manufacturers, but its customers have come to them for quality and loyalty. In recent years, Chinese competitors have caught up in quality, but their OEM clients have remained loyal to them. They believe the tariffs will wipe them out completely.

Year-over-year trucking activity out of Los Angeles down 23%. It will likely drop to 50% in the coming weeks if there isn't trade war resolution. Massive layoffs coming to the West Coast trucking sector

Intl postal volumes to US down 81%. This is going to have a big earnings drag on international airline revenues, as a signficant portion of belly cargo is dedicated to parcels.

Canada looking to wipe out its auto sector

I was pro-tariff when I thought we were getting 10% on the world and 20% on China. 145% on China is too much, too fast.

Last June, FreightWaves issued a report that stated that "imports were dropping off a cliff." Stifel wrote a damning rebuttal, accusing FreightWaves of greatly exaggerating the slowdown and accusing us of not doing our homework on the situation. In reality, it was Stifel that failed to do their homework. The bank used lagging customs data and relied too heavily on container liners' internal reports (which have always been wrong). They never asked us how our data was different than the data they relied upon. Our data and analysis turned out to be correct. Today, Stifel issued a new report, which told the state of the container market: "The container market is in terrible condition... If Q4 does not deliver some type of improvement, then I think we are looking at a dire situation in 2024."

As shared with me today “This is COVID level supply chain collapse without the Fed.”

The great news is that the Administration can easily reverse the damage by simply saying: Tariffs on Chinese imports: 25% for 2025 50% in 2026 100% in 2027 200% in 2028. Importers can make the necessary supply chain adjustments, while causing long-term damage to China, without significant US economic and supply chain impacts that are likely to come.

Japan had a 1200 year ban on the consumption of meat. While it was described as a religious practice, there was also an economic purpose. The rulers did not want to dedicate any land or crops to grazing animals, as only 20% of the island nation is arable. This all changed when Japan opened up trading with the outside world. When the Emperor first announced that he had consumed meat, Buddhist monks tried to kill the emperor. Initially, ships packed with ice would bring in meat for the elite, but when refrigeration was invented and meat became far more affordable, meat became more common in Japanese diets. From Moving the World

Never fails. After hours -10.5%

The stock market and Main Street often diverge. Public freight companies, small businesses, port operators, and supply chain management professionals all agree - the goods economy is headed off the rails. But most people on Wall Street are so disconnected from the reality of how the goods economy works that they assume that everything in economics is reflected in stocks. What they fail to understand is that stock price indicies are often a function of global liquidity and not fundamentals.

The only thing surprising about the freight market slowdown is the speed at which its unfolding. The supply chain "bullwhip effect" is both predictable and was expected. The surge of inventories and declining freight costs/capacity imbalances will be deflationary. 1/

Sorry man, the economy is not reaccelerating. This is a high-frequency chart of the goods economy, and index of the number of goods shipped through the US domestic economy. Down 15% YoY.

Commercial pilots now make more than doctors or lawyers and enter their aviation career with far less debt and more earnings years than either. barrons.com/articles/pilot-p…

Married pilots know the struggle

Let me guess - the economic data has been manufactured since 2022 and we’ve been in a recession ever since. It’s what the freight data would suggest.

This is Mexico's moment to steal manufacturing market share from China.

When people talk about fraud and illegal trucker operators, people immediately assume that I’m referring to Latinos. I’m not. In my experience, Latinos are often so petrified to get caught that they try to adhere to US trucking regulations to avoid having problems with inspectors and risk losing their livelihood and status. It’s the groups from the former Soviet states and Indian subcontinent, where breaking the law is often the only way to survive back home. Many of the firms that employ these truckers are connected to organized criminal groups back home and have a very low regard for authorities.

"The driver shortage" narrative over the past two years has caused the largest amount of startup trucking fleets in history. This is not a meme stock - these are actual entrepreneurs that have started their own trucking company. Thread 1/n

Companies don’t add jobs when they have no confidence in the direction of the economy or their own business

10 years sober today. Best decade of my life. The boys and I jaunted over to Iceland to celebrate.

Dave Clark moved his Flexport journey from “experience” to “education” on LinkedIn

No country has been impacted by trade with the US this year as much as India has. -35% since the end of August

China was 2% of global GDP in 1980. Today it is 18%. The vast majority of the industries that China now leads were created in the United States and Europe, often through the theft of intellectual property by American and European companies. China would steal our intellectual property, avoiding all the research and development in technology and market research, and then sell us the same products back at a much cheaper price. China was able to grow its economy so rapidly because of the peacetime dividend afforded by America's unchallenged superpower status and global policing—the age of Globalization. That world ended in 2022, and we are now transitioning into a multipolar world, where increased conflict is expected. The Second Cold War is here, and Supply Chains are the front lines.

If you want to know how the economy is actually doing, ignore "retail sales" or "credit card consumption" data. These data sources are distorted by inflation, after all, if a product is 5% more expensive than last year, it will look like you sold 5% more of the same product, when your sales are actually flat. Freight volume data doesn't track the price of goods and therefore isn't distorted by inflation. It tracks the number of units shipped through the economy. Sell more units of a product, you get more shipping. Sell less, you have less shipping. You can't store freight, so there are no inventory games being played in the data. Retailers play games with inventory and discounting to drive sales, but this also creates short term distortions in consumer activity. Freight data doesn't have these distortions. Companies only move product around the economy if there is demand and since freight data is upstream, volumes in the freight market will reflect economic activity 6+ months in the future.

99.9% of the heavy duty trucks sold in the US are manufactured in North America. While trucks are produced in Mexico or Canada (thnx FreightX for the reminder), they should be covered under USMCA. Furthermore, the trucking industry can't handle more cost increases, the industry is facing an extinction-level event due to a disastrous freight economy.

$1.12 trillion worth of student loans remain in forbearance, meaning that payments have been temporarily paused. On July 1, 2023, the student loan forbearance program ends & payments will resume. Consumers 18 - 44 years old are among the most important demo that drive the goods economy. 59% carry student debt. Loan repayments will eat into disposable income. We should expect a pullback in goods consumption. High frequency freight data should reveal how this is impacting consumer activity in early July and we will report on it.

Multiple stories today of motor carriers that bring truckers in on tourist visas, they drive for 90 days and then leave. They make enough money during that period to support their family for the whole year. Entire fleet business models built around this.

These stores target busy business travelers. I often get my wife’s presents in luxury stores at the airport…

"Worst freight market since the Great Financial Crisis." This statement is common across social media. Now we have some evidence to support it. The worst trucking market prior to the current one was in 2019, the "Trucking Bloodbath." At one point, 10 large trucking companies filed for bankruptcy in a single week. New England Motor Freight (NEMF)'s bankruptcy opened the year (3000 employees) and Celadon (5500 employees) ended it. There were hundreds in between. The current trucking spot rate is below the 2019 seasonal equivalent. While this alone is bad, the worst news is that operating costs for trucking companies (not including fuel) are up more than $.30/mile in that same period. On a cash flow-adjusted basis, spot rates are down to $1.19/mile & this does NOT include any increases in the cost of capital to finance operations.

The worst part of this economic slowdown is that the people that could do something about it are completely unaware/uninterested in doing so. Everything is about "AI". The Fed, Administration, and Congress are so disconnected from Main Street that they have no idea how fast things are crumbling. Wall Street is sending the wrong signal.

We are learning what having FU money gives you

I can't remember a time in history, when the yoy comparison for tender rejections rates were red in EVERY SINGLE MARKET. Trucking capacity is loosening in every market across the US.