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The Daily // Tue 08.25.26 View in browser →
The DailyTuesday · August 25, 2026
The five minutes that makes you the most informed person in freight today
Lead Story
Likely BMO swan song shows trucking credit strengtheningIn what might be the last publication of a revealing look at credit conditions in the trucking industry, bank BMO’s quarterly earnings, released Tuesday, showed the stronger freight market impacting its numbers. BMO, one of the largest lenders to the trucking industry, announced plans in May to sell its transportation unit to private equity firm Stonepeak, with the deal expected to close before year-end and the next earnings release not scheduled until December. Net writeoffs in the third quarter ended July 31 were little changed at Ca $24 million (US $17.32 million), down slightly from $25 million the prior quarter — a backward-looking figure. But the more forward-looking indicators told a clearer story: provisions for credit losses fell to $15 million from $41 million in the second quarter and $50 million a year ago, the lowest level since the first quarter of 2023. Allowances for credit losses slid to $73 million from $86 million, and gross impaired loans fell to $440 million from $576 million one quarter earlier and $585 million in the fourth quarter of last year. Gross loans and acceptances for the transportation sector ticked up to $12.78 billion from $12.65 billion in the second quarter, though still well below the $15.6 billion peak in the third quarter of 2023. One place where the pending sale is showing up: transportation group loan originations fell to just $11 million in the third quarter from $114 million in the second, suggesting the bank is winding down new lending ahead of the Stonepeak deal closing. Why It Matters?
Declining provisions and impaired loans at one of trucking’s largest lenders signal that freight-market credit conditions are strengthening — a leading indicator for carrier health and lending appetite as the sector works its way out of a prolonged freight recession. Top Stories
Legendary logistics executive Klaus-Michael Kühne dead at 89Klaus-Michael Kühne, the former CEO of family-owned global logistics powerhouse Kuehne+Nagel International AG, died Sunday at the age of 89, the company announced. Born in Hamburg, he joined the company co-founded by his grandfather in 1958, took over as CEO in 1966 at age 29, moved the business to Switzerland as it internationalized in 1974, opened K+N’s first China office in 1979 and took the company public on the Swiss stock exchange in 1994. Since 2011, Kühne held the position of honorary chairman and established Kuehne Logistics University in Hamburg and the philanthropic Kühne Foundation. He owned about 30% of container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd and about 17% of German airline Lufthansa. Current Kuehne+Nagel CEO Stefan Paul said on LinkedIn that "the Management Board and I are deeply conscious of our responsibility to build on what he set in motion." Why It Matters?
Kühne’s five-decade run built Kuehne+Nagel into one of the world’s top five logistics providers by revenue, and his personal stakes in Hapag-Lloyd and Lufthansa are a reminder of how much influence family capital still holds over global shipping and aviation infrastructure. Sponsored · Aurora
New plan for NYC’s BQE involves temporary roads: MamdaniMayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled a plan Monday to rehabilitate the cantilevered section of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) that carries an estimated 13,000 to 14,000 heavy trucks a day among roughly 130,000 total vehicles, connecting the Verrazano Narrows Bridge across Staten Island to routes serving Long Island, the Bronx and points north. The plan’s core is a temporary bypass roadway — including a two-level structure over Furman Street and another above the existing BQE — so traffic can keep moving during construction; both bypasses would be removed once the work is finished. The road will stay at two lanes with no changes to existing interchanges, and groundbreaking is expected in 2030 with a 10-year construction timeline meant to extend the structure’s life by 40 years. Zach Miller of the Trucking Association of New York praised the plan, saying "we have to live in reality, and I believe that’s exactly what this administration is doing." Why It Matters?
BQE Central is one of the busiest freight corridors in the Northeast, and a decade-long rehabilitation built around temporary bypass roads means truckers and dispatchers should expect years of altered routing through one of the region’s most critical highway links. Uber Freight: US-Mexico capacity crunch could ‘get worse before it gets better’A shortage of B-1 visa drivers is tightening U.S.-Mexico trucking capacity and contributing to freight backlogs in Nuevo Laredo, according to Uber Freight senior vice president Zeid Houssami, who said increased enforcement involving B-1 drivers has escalated since earlier this year even as cross-border demand keeps growing. FreightWaves SONAR data shows Laredo’s outbound tender rejection rate easing to 6.93% as of Aug. 24 from 12.24% a month earlier, suggesting the capacity squeeze is concentrated in the cross-border segment rather than domestic trucking out of Laredo. Uber Freight is encouraging shippers to consider transloading — moving freight into a different trailer at the border for a U.S. driver to complete the haul — as an alternative to waiting on scarce B-1 capacity, though adoption has been slower than expected given the added risk of cargo damage and theft. Mexican carriers are responding by recruiting drivers farther south and building English-language training academies to grow the qualified B-1 pool, though Houssami called that pipeline "a wild card" for the rest of 2026. Why It Matters?
Rising U.S.-Mexico freight demand is colliding with a shrinking pool of B-1 drivers that could push trucking rates higher, lengthen border crossing delays and force shippers to rethink how they move freight through gateways such as Laredo, Texas. Feds: USPS carriers stole nearly $24M in checks, shipped them through FedExFederal prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas charged five people Aug. 19 in a scheme accused of stealing $23,973,338.15 worth of checks from Houston postal routes. Three of the defendants — Catherine Clauzelle Kilpatrick, Drakkor Jamar Alexander and Malcolm Tiree Joubert — worked as U.S. Postal Service carriers, while Tryston Tremaine Vaughn and Alyssa Nadine Bryant allegedly purchased the stolen checks and marketed them through a Telegram channel called "slipsandchips." The alleged conspiracy ran from around October 2022 through September 2024, with participants shipping checks to buyers nationwide through FedEx. One count centers on a $1,517,875.27 BMO Bank check prosecutors say Joubert took from the mail in May 2024; the indictment also lists smaller checks tied to Chase, Amegy Bank, Citibank and Stellar Bank. All five face conspiracy and bank fraud charges, and the three carriers also face mail-theft charges; each remains presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Why It Matters?
Freight and parcel professionals face growing risks when criminals use legitimate transportation networks to move fraud-related materials. This case shows how insider access, online sales channels and shipment services can work together. FreightWaves Today · Live at 12PM ET
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F3: Future of Freight Festival
FreightWaves’ flagship event blends rapid-fire tech demos and world-class speakers with the most legendary networking in logistics. Join 1,000+ freight and logistics experts, industry leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators for a definitive look at the year ahead. Come for the insights, stay for the celebration and leave with the connections that will define your 2027. October 27–28, 2026 · The Signal, Chattanooga
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Presented by CargoWise Landside
What It Takes to Win in the Next Era of DrayageHow automation and digital transformation enable growth and scale without adding costs. Presented by Chevron
Diversifying Fleet Fuels with Diesel, Renewable Diesel, CNG, and MoreChevron’s biofuels scientist breaks down the potential benefits of alternative fuel options for fleets and how to test a natural gas truck at no cost through Chevron’s demo program. Presented by Aurora
Your next truck could drive itself.Aurora Driver 2 is hauling freight on public roads. From the Research Desk
In partnership with CargoWise Landside
What It Takes to Win in the Next Era of DrayageFreightWaves and CargoWise Landside surveyed drayage operators on the automation investments separating growth from margin compression amid demand volatility and driver shortages. In partnership with Werner
High-Stakes Freight Brokerage: Risk and AccountabilityFreightWaves and Werner surveyed shippers moving high-value freight and found compliance failures and limited visibility are turning low-cost brokerage into a reliability risk, not just a pricing one. In partnership with Trimble
White Paper: AI Agent Readiness and Adoption in FreightAI is moving beyond experimentation and into everyday freight operations. FreightWaves and Trimble surveyed carriers, brokers, shippers and owner-operators on where the industry is adopting AI today and what leaders expect next. Courtesy of Infios
New Research: Tariffs Didn’t Raise Costs. They Raised the Execution Standard.Infios-backed research breaks down how tariff volatility turned transport-mode selection and trade-route monitoring into daily operating decisions instead of annual ones. Watch on FreightWaves TV
What We’re Watching
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BMO’s transportation lending data may be its last — and it’s flashing greenFalling provisions and impaired loans point to a strengthening freight market just as BMO’s sale of its transportation unit to Stonepeak nears close. Watch whether December’s earnings, if they happen at all, confirm the trend. ▸
US-Mexico driver shortage could get worse before it gets betterUber Freight says a shrinking B-1 driver pool is backing up freight in Nuevo Laredo even as demand grows. Watch whether transloading adoption picks up as carriers hold out for scarce direct capacity. ▸
NYC commits to a decade-long BQE rehabMamdani’s plan for BQE Central relies on temporary bypass roads to keep 13,000-plus daily trucks moving through 2030’s groundbreaking and beyond. Watch how carriers serving the corridor plan around a decade of construction. That’s your Daily for today. See you tomorrow.
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