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Truck Tonnage Slips as Tariff Impacts Looms, ATA

[ May 1, 2025   //   ]

The U.S. freight market slowed in March after a robust February, but data for the first quarter of 2025 suggested a turnaround was underway, the American Trucking Associations said April 23 in a Transport Topics report.

Truck freight tonnage in March decreased 1.5 percent after rising 2.8 percent in February, ATA’s seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index was 113.4 for the month, down from 115.1 in February. The index, for which the year 2015 represents 100, inched up 0.2 percent compared with March 2024 for a third consecutive year-over-year increase.

“Solid manufacturing output in March, led by robust auto production, likely helped truck freight tonnage not fall more after a very strong February,” ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said in an April 22 news release.

ATA’s not seasonally adjusted index – calculated using raw changes in tonnage hauled – was 114.6 in March, 9.5 percent above February’s reading of 104.7.

Both indexes focus on contract freight, as opposed to spot market freight. The tonnage indexes are calculated based on surveys of ATA’s members.

“While the gains were not strong at half of a percent and less, it was the first time that the quarterly average increased both sequentially and from a year earlier in two years,” Costello said. “That tells me that the freight market did in fact turn around in the first three months of the year despite an uncertain outlook.”

Much of that uncertainty is due to the Trump administration’s back-and-forth approach, imposing and then pausing tariffs on imports from around the globe. Baseline tariffs of 10 percent on all U.S. imports initially became effective April 5, with many countries’ exports seeing much higher trade levies. A 90-day pause started April 9, but tariffs on imports from China as well as steel and aluminum remain in place.

March’s positive results was partly propelled by shippers trying to get ahead of tariff-related cost increases, said ACT Research Vice President Tim Denoyer. Second quarter freight should see further bumps from additional pre-tariffs shipping, but higher prices will reduce goods’ affordability and consumers’ real incomes after that, hurting shipment levels, he noted.

The World Trade Organization on April 16 said it expects U.S. exports to drop 12.6 percent in 2025 due to the tariffs. Plus, the International Monetary Fund in its latest World Economic Outlook forecast said U.S. economic growth is expected to slow to 1.8 percent in 2025 compared with a forecast of 2.7 percent growth in January, a downgrade driven by greater policy uncertainty, trade tensions and softer demand momentum. Global growth is projected to drop to 2.8 percent in 2025 and 3 percent in 2026, compared with January expectations of 3.3 percent for both years, the multilateral financial institution said April 22.

Stateside, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell also expressed concern about the tariffs’ effect on the U.S. economy.

“The level of the tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated. The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth,” Powell told the Economic Club of Chicago on April 16.

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