Commentary

Recent financial challenges at Hub Group show how the onus of credit risk on the intermodal marketing company could hamper domestic intermodal growth sought through a UP-NS merger, writes analyst Paul Tonsager.

The amount of capacity available to customers increasingly depends on how effectively vessels, containers, ports, terminals and inland networks can move cargo.

Procurement must decide which costs are structural, which reflect temporary scarcity and which capacity commitments still have strategic value, writes Paul Tonsager.

The rigid annual RFP is a contract both sides abandon the moment the market moves; in a whipsaw freight market thinned by higher-for-longer interest rates, the flexible model is the disciplined one.

In recent years, ocean carriers have maintained they have a natural hedge by passing on the movement in fuel prices to customers via the bunker adjustment factor, which explains why many consider actual hedging to be “gambling,” writes John McCauley.

If California truly wants to clean the air along its freight corridors, CARB must walk back a “shortsighted” restriction that makes the move to zero emissions uneconomical for midsize truck fleet owners.

With the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement joint review now open, the distance between the landed-cost model and the operational reality is widening.

The next phase of intermodal growth will depend on whether the industry can move freight efficiently, securely, and with the reliability customers expect.

In order to consolidate and enhance its position in the EU, China is pursuing control of the shipping routes and ports of call by which China-origin goods are transported to land-based EU destinations.

More than simply a weather event, a super El Niño, which some forecasts suggest could occur later this year, could become a defining test of the continent’s trade resilience.

The proposed Maritime Security Trust Fund is a long-overdue effort to develop a dedicated funding mechanism for marine terminals, berths and cargo handling systems, and the industry should work together to get the implementation right, says the head of the US’ largest terminal operator.

Most logistics providers are treating the coming Section 301 tariffs as a back-office regulatory event. In truth, they are the most consequential volume-disruption risk of the 2026 freight year, writes James Ferry.

A network the size Enstructure is now assembling changes who has the upper hand at the dock, writes Paul Tonsager.

If a regulatory model developed through years of technical analysis, public consultation, and formal review can be substantially redirected through a subsequent political intervention, what signal does that send about the stability of regulatory decision-making?

Those in the freight transportation industry must continue to deliver a safe and economical product while action is taken to rid the market of ‘non-compliant’ capacity, writes Ted Prince.

When it comes to capably managing shipping disruptions in the critical waterway, resilience is not simply having alternative routes available; it is knowing when to use them.

Small carriers that practice pricing discipline and manage costs are turning a profit, but whether they can maintain profitability will directly affect how much capacity is available to shippers and how sharply rates may rise.

The application of emergency fuel charges amid the war in the Middle East is the latest episode in poorly thought-out ideas and “short-termism” by carriers that has hammered another nail in the coffin of trust between them and BCOs.

ASCS debuted last week with great fanfare; now that the dust has settled, the question for shipper traffic and procurement teams is more practical: What do we do about it?

The state has pumped money into Portland’s T-6 and other projects with the belief the state required its own infrastructure – despite the availability of cost-effective solutions from California and Washington state ports.

A container imbalance fee at the Port of New York and New Jersey that was designed to improve port fluidity may, ironically, drive away discretionary cargo instead, writes the executive director of the Ocean Carrier Equipment Management Association.

When importers control freight, they control options such as ocean carriers, transit times and service levels, thus helping to shield themselves from problems that can arise when the control is left to others, writes Andy Heller.

Trade diversification is not achieved by rhetoric or trade agreements alone, but by building systems that enable Canadian producers to access global markets reliably, competitively, and at scale.

The Trump administration’s threatened, and actual, withdrawal from numerous international groups and forums can eventually upset the relative stability that has existed in post-World War II global trade, writes Ted Prince.

After more than two decades of inconsistent federal enforcement, corrective actions are now arriving, raising hopes for a safer trucking industry and the general public it serves.

GLP-1 weight loss drugs are the most visible example of a force reshaping freight that supply chains weren’t built to detect, writes Paul Tonsager.

Southern California’s traditional solutions to surging freight volumes ignore the fact that they might well have reached the limits of being effective, writes Ted Prince.

Record fleet expansion, widening scale disparities, and lingering financial reserves have combined to create a rare window in which transformative deals among ocean carriers are both feasible and strategically rational.

That means minimizing drayage without degrading transit, requiring disaggregating volume from larger hubs into smaller ones.

The current market situation is favorable for BCOs, and the temptation will be great to drive down base rates because of internal cost pressures, writes John McCauley.

There are a lot of theories explaining the current freight recession, but there is no disputing that decreased demand, cutthroat competition, and plummeting rates have occurred simultaneously with inflationary cost components, writes Ted Prince.

As AI becomes embedded across global trade workflows, the companies that stand apart will be the ones that treat identity, consent and authorization as core infrastructure.

The future of LTL classification will be shaped by systems that function in real operations, standards that scale and modernization grounded in how freight actually moves.

The era of “good enough” visibility has ended, and data accuracy needs to match its operational and economic impacts.

The National Motor Freight Traffic Association issued new guidelines to promote dimensional pricing last July but ignored the fact that the LTL industry was riddled with excess capacity and languishing demand.

Any domestic intermodal growth in 2026 will depend largely on whether the mode can claw back share from the highway.

While there is little doubt that heightened regulatory enforcement has played some role in affecting dry-van truckload capacity in the fourth quarter of 2025, efforts to attribute the sharp rise in spot prices this month to regulatory enforcement are premature, writes Jason Miller.

If gaps in strategy are visible to informed observers, they will be obvious to the STB, competitors conducting discovery, and shippers evaluating claimed benefits.

The Department of Justice seems to be suggesting that if the Supreme Court pulls the plug on the IEEPA tariffs, it won’t stand in the way of refunds — at least not for parties who get themselves properly in front of the Court.

Until the whole container shipping industry improves its reliability, the scope for any form of premium/bonus for above-target performance is low, writes John McCauley.