Trucking companies are beginning to bear the burden of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on U.S. trade partners, and are cutting headcount and seeing decreased volumes as a result.
Volvo Group North America could be laying off as many as 980 employees across three U.S. manufacturing plants over the next few months.
“Heavy-duty truck orders continue to be negatively affected by market uncertainty about freight rates and demand, possible regulatory changes and the impact of tariffs,” said a spokesperson at Volvo Group North America, in a statement. “We regret having to take this action, but we need to align production with reduced demand for our vehicles.”
A range of 430 to 530 employees will be laid off at the Volvo Trucks New River Valley plant in Dublin, Va. Their last day will be June 27, according to the spokesperson.
Another 250 to 350 people at the company’s Mack Trucks Lehigh Valley center in Macungie, Pa. will also see their employment cut. In Hagerstown, Md., 50 to 100 employees at the company’s Powertrain facility will be affected.
Volvo Group North America, which represents 29 percent of total 2024 sales at Volvo Group, employs 19,600 people and operates 16 manufacturing and “remanufacturing” facilities across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
The uncertainty created by the tariffs is expected to exacerbate demand concerns that have largely permeated across trucking since 2022, when the freight recession started and the freight-moving capacity well outpaced demand levels. The lack of demand has further applied downward pressure on freight rates—a foreboding sign for trucking companies.
In Q2 2025, the truckload rate-per-mile index is projected to show a slight quarter-over-quarter decline to 5.5 percent, according to April’s TD Cowen/AFS Freight Index—the ninth straight quarter with rates between just 4.3 percent and 5.9 percent above a 2018 baseline.
“A sustained shift toward shorter-haul shipments, defined as those of 500 miles or less, drove the total cost per shipment down to 5 percent above pre-pandemic levels—the lowest point in over three years, and indicative of a broader trend of more regional distribution and decentralized inventory positioning,” according to the index.
Numerous trucking companies have ceased operations over the past month as the market tightens, including Florida-based Davis Express, Illinois-based LTI Trucking Services and Michigan’s Equity Transportation Co. Two other businesses, Best Choice Trucking in Massachusetts and C & C Freight Network out of Georgia, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The trucking industry was largely bullish on the prospects of a second Trump administration, namely based on the president’s platform for increased domestic manufacturing and reshoring.
Trump’s tariffs are designed to incentivize U.S. and foreign businesses alike to bring more production back to the U.S., Canada and Mexico. A manufacturing boom in North America would in theory mean more volumes moved domestically and across borders. With more demand filling up trucking capacity, freight rates on the road would improve, benefiting trucking firms.
However, domestic manufacturing contracted in March after two months of expansion, according to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Manufacturing Business Survey. Price growth on inputs accelerated due to the tariffs, causing new order placement backlogs and supplier delivery slowdowns.
Additionally, the sheer steepness of the tariffs have created some barriers for trucking, especially the 25-percent duties levied on the U.S. neighbors for products not already compliant with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
North of the border, the Canadian Trucking Alliance says 70 percent of a carriers have seen loads to the U.S. either cancelled or paused. This includes commodities like lumber, oil, fertilizers, farming equipment, tires and food products.
As many as 60 percent of Canadian trucking carriers said that a prolonged trade war could put their business operations at serious risk.
“Once capacity is drained from the cross-border sector, it will be dumped into the Canadian market, creating unsustainable business conditions and a nuclear winter for Canada-U.S. freight movement,” said CTA president and CEO Stephen Laskowski in a statement.
Alternatively, counter-tariffs haven’t has as much of an impact on Canadian imports from the U.S., as 70 percent of carriers report no impact on demand for northbound freight.
The 145-percent duties slapped on China have been more extreme than even many industry experts previously imagined. As a result, the mass cancellation or postponement of orders out of China has resulted in plummeting freight numbers over the Pacific Ocean. With both the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach serving as major hubs for freight, truckers are anticipating fewer pickups of goods and ensuing deliveries.
Overall, February freight appointments from ports, warehouses and distribution centers jumped 44 percent from January, according to dock appointment scheduling platform DataDocks. But the jump is presumably a byproduct of the pulling forward of goods ahead of the anticipated tariffs, as month-over-month numbers in March declined 15 percent.
April’s totals plummeted another 41 percent in an another indicator that trucking movement has largely cooled down. The sharpest declines in freight volume bookings for April, according to DataDocks, are in the Northwest (61 percent) and West (52 percent) regions—yet another gauge of the slowdowns on the West Coast.
One major logistics and trucking firm, J.B. Hunt, was already seeing volume and revenue softness ahead of the West Coast’s “drying up” of cargo, illustrating the rough sledding many carriers were already facing ahead of the pause in international bookings.
The company’s truckload segment saw a tepid 2 percent increase in load volume, with the unit’s revenue per load falling 6 percent from the year prior.
“The truckload market loosened as the quarter progressed,” said Spencer Frazier, executive vice president of sales and marketing at J.B. Hunt, in an earnings call earlier this month. “This suggests truckload capacity continues to exceed demand.”
