THE DAILY

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

The five minutes that make you the most informed person in freight today

The Daily

SMBs abandon wait-and-see on tariffs as 97% shift to active mitigation

Small and midsize shippers have run out of patience with tariff volatility, and the freight market is about to feel the downstream effects.

Netstock’s 2026 Tariff Impact Report, released this morning, shows 97% of SMBs now deploying at least one active mitigation strategy, a sharp break from last year’s cautious posture. “Last year was largely a kind of wait-and-see, and this year … 97% are deploying at least one active mitigation strategy,” Netstock CMO Jefferson Barr told FreightWaves. “They can no longer kind of take a wait-and-see approach.”

The restructuring is concrete. About 35% of SMBs changed suppliers over the past year, and nearly half now source from multiple regions. China remains the most tariff-impacted sourcing origin at 74% of respondents, but Europe, Southeast Asia and Mexico are picking up redirected volume. Most shippers aren’t walking away from legacy suppliers. They’re layering secondary sources on top, which fragments freight flows and pulls lane volume away from the predictable trans-Pacific patterns carriers built their networks around.

Nearly three-quarters of SMBs have extended their inventory planning horizons to absorb longer lead times and anticipate policy shifts. That front-loads orders and inflates safety stock. It also raises the risk of inventory whiplash if demand cracks. And demand pressure is building: 82% of SMBs are now raising prices to pass tariff costs through, up sharply from last year. “That was one of my biggest takeaways,” Barr said. “It’s kind of pushed past the point of them being able to bear it.”

Analytics adoption more than doubled year over year, a sign that SMBs know they can’t run a multi-region sourcing strategy off spreadsheets. “The spreadsheet’s not going to cut it,” Barr said. The freight read is straightforward: expect lumpier demand, more multi-region lanes, earlier ordering cycles, and a softer back half if higher consumer prices bite.

So What? Carriers and brokers modeling 2026 volumes off 2024 consumption patterns are going to miss. Multi-region sourcing will stretch the Europe, Mexico and Southeast Asia lanes while diluting concentrated trans-Pacific flows. Bid cycles priced without buffer for tariff-driven bounce are about to get painful, and anyone exposed to consumer-discretionary freight should plan for softer Q3 and Q4 demand as the 82% price-hike wave passes through to end buyers.

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Top Stories

FMC chair calls U.S. ports ‘grossly inefficient,’ flags security risk in new Arctic route

Federal Maritime Commission Chair Laura DiBella said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permitting is choking port development, pointing to Port Everglades’ decade-long wait for a dredging permit that the Corps just withdrew. She said automation has to come into U.S. ports, and East Coast and Gulf ports aren’t speaking up loudly enough about the proposed Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern merger. She also flagged recent Chinese vessels completing Asia–Europe runs through the Northern Sea Route in 18 days versus 30 to 40 days on trans-Pacific lanes, calling the Arctic opening both an Alaska infrastructure opportunity and a defense concern given Chinese and Russian activity there.

So What? If Arctic transits scale, Alaska port capacity becomes a strategic asset and the STB’s rail merger review picks up a maritime dimension Gulf and Baltimore interests haven’t fully weighed in on. Watch the FMC chokepoint study for where federal infrastructure dollars are likely to flow next.

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Benchmark diesel posts biggest weekly drop since late 2022

The DOE/EIA average retail diesel price fell 20.5 cents per gallon to $5.403 a gallon, the largest weekly decline since a 22-cent drop in December 2022. It’s the second consecutive weekly decline after 12 straight weeks of increases, and futures suggest more room below. ULSD collapsed 66.6 cents per gallon on April 8 after the Iran ceasefire announcement and has settled at $3.5409 a gallon. Analysts told CNBC that a successful peace deal could push Brent into the mid-$70s from Monday’s $95 settle, though physical-market premiums are still flashing tightness.

So What? Fuel surcharge schedules priced off last quarter’s peaks are about to result in shippers overpaying. Brokers and carriers should recalibrate their next update now and watch physical-market signals before assuming the retail price has more room to fall.

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CSX curtails operations at Barr Yard, hands switching to BRC and IHB

CSX has sharply reduced operations at Barr Yard in Riverdale, Illinois, one of its top 10 terminals by volume, and shifted most switching work to the Belt Railway of Chicago and Indiana Harbor Belt. Daily inventory, which ranged from 1,400 to 1,800 cars earlier this year, has collapsed to 228 cars, including 118 empty petcoke cars in storage. CSX also eliminated a daily transfer to Canadian National’s Kirk Yard and dropped merchandise trains M326/M327 between Barr and Grand Rapids, with traffic now routing through Garrett, Toledo and Detroit. SMART-TD Local 1534 says a dozen two-person yard jobs were cut over the weekend and is contesting the move under the B&OCT contract.

So What? Shippers moving CSX carload through Chicago should confirm BRC and IHB interchange arrangements and stress-test transit times during the transition. If the outsourcing model holds against the union challenge, expect other Class Is to test similar playbooks at their own congested Chicago terminals.

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Shell Starship 3.0 hits 204 ton-miles per gallon at Indianapolis demo

Shell’s third-generation natural gas demonstration truck logged 204 ton-miles per gallon at the U.S. Shell Eco-marathon at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, roughly 2.5 times the 80 ton-miles per gallon baseline for a standard Class 8 tractor. The carbon-fiber cab delivers a 0.25 drag coefficient versus 0.6 for a typical tractor, and a 15-liter natural gas engine replaced the original diesel with simplified after-treatment. Shell engineers flagged off-the-shelf upgrades fleets can deploy today: moving from 15W-40 to 10W-30 oil can yield up to 2% fuel savings, and 5W-30 up to 3.3%. NACFE’s Mike Roeth noted Run on Less trucks have hit 11.5 mpg against a national average under 7.

So What? At $6 a gallon diesel, the efficiency case isn’t waiting on a future clean-truck rollout. Lubricants, tire selection and aero kits already on the shelf can deliver measurable savings now and put real dollars on a fleet’s bottom line before any powertrain decision has to be made.

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From the Research Desk

What We’re Watching

▸ Whether the diesel slide keeps running. ULSD has whipsawed since the April 8 ceasefire, with physical markets still flashing tightness while the retail benchmark is down 24 cents over two weeks. Watch next Monday’s DOE/EIA print to see if fuel surcharges need another recalibration.

▸ The UP-NS merger’s Gulf and East Coast fallout. DiBella said Gulf Coast and Baltimore voices aren’t loud enough in the STB record, and CSX’s doublestack investment in Baltimore’s Howard Street Tunnel hinges on the outcome. Watch for coordinated port-coalition filings in coming weeks.

▸ Whether CSX’s Barr Yard move becomes a template. If the BRC/IHB outsourcing holds up against the SMART-TD challenge, expect other Class Is to test similar models at their own congested Chicago and Memphis terminals.

That’s your Daily for today. See you tomorrow.

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