THE DAILY

Friday, February 20, 2026

The ten minutes that makes you the most informed person in freight today

THE DAILY

The Supreme Court struck down IEEPA tariffs. Your supply chain and freight lanes don’t look the same today.

In a 6-3 ruling issued Friday, the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, holding that IEEPA does not authorize the kind of broad, retaliatory trade duties the administration has been levying since February 2025. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion. It is the most significant legal rebuke of Trump’s trade strategy to date, and it comes at a moment when freight markets are still recalibrating from a year of tariff-induced distortion.

The cases, Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections Inc., brought by an educational toy company and a wine importer, turned on whether IEEPA gave the executive branch authority to impose broad reciprocal tariff rates. The court said no. The ruling struck down country-by-country reciprocal rates as high as 34% on Chinese imports and the 25% duties on Canadian, Mexican and Chinese goods tied to drug trafficking enforcement. Tariffs enacted under separate statutory authority remain in place, including steel and aluminum duties under Section 232.

The numbers at stake are staggering. Penn Wharton estimated that about $500 million in IEEPA-based tariff revenue was being collected daily. Total IEEPA receipts since February 2025 total roughly $179 billion. Those dollars were paid by American importers, and now there is a question of how fast and how much will be refunded. The grassroots coalition We Pay the Tariffs, representing more than 800 small and micro businesses, immediately called on the administration to implement “full, fast and automatic” refunds. The Court of International Trade is positioned to move quickly on implementation orders, including refund instructions to Customs and Border Protection.

For freight markets, the ruling creates a potential tailwind, but not an instant one. Project44 data showed U.S. imports from China fell 28% year over year in 2025, and ocean container volumes to the U.S. dropped 14% as businesses ran leaner inventories and sourced elsewhere. That trade doesn’t snap back overnight. Paul Brashier of ITS Logistics noted that if IEEPA tariffs are removed from all imported goods, “there would certainly be an increase in imports, especially for goods recently being sourced in higher-tariff countries.” But given ocean transit times, any volume impact is roughly 45 days away.

Don’t declare the trade war over. Trump called the decision “a disgrace” and said he has a backup plan. The administration is expected to pursue tariffs through alternative statutes, Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act (USTR-led) and Section 232 (Commerce-led), both of which come with stricter procedural constraints and narrower scope. eMarketer principal analyst Zak Stambor put it plainly: “The decision provides some near-term relief, but it does not eliminate the broader trade policy uncertainty facing retailers and brands.”

So What? Carrier and shipper action items: Watch trans-Pacific spot rates for the first signs of resurgent volume. It will take 45 days to materialize. Importers should begin preparing refund documentation now. The window to recoup tariff payments is real, but so is the administrative backlog. Shippers who restructured sourcing to dodge China tariffs face a new calculus. Don’t unwind nearshoring decisions based on one ruling. The administration will find a new authority. But if you’re sitting on high-cost China-sourced inventory, relief may be coming on future orders.

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Top Stories

State of Freight: The strong market isn’t a blip. It’s a new baseline.

SONAR head of market analysis Zach Strickland and FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller joined the latest State of Freight to answer one question: Is this strong market sticky? Their answer: Probably yes.

Tender rejections are running above 13% nationally. Capacity has been quietly bleeding out for the better part of two years, and the structural capacity removal driven by FMCSA enforcement and carrier attrition is not reversing.

Fuller, who declared in October that “we are at the bottom of the cycle,” is now watching SONAR data show higher lows and higher highs in rate indices. Add a potential housing or manufacturing rebound on top of an already tight-capacity baseline, and the market gets more interesting fast.

So What? If your 2026 procurement strategy was built on 2024 market assumptions, it’s already stale. The market inflection isn’t coming. Per the SONAR data, it’s already here. Benchmark your lane costs now while contract rates still have some room to negotiate. Carriers are gaining leverage back faster than many shippers have priced in.

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FMCSA finalizes 11 deregulatory changes. Here’s what actually matters for your fleet.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) finalized 11 of 18 proposed deregulatory actions it floated in May 2025. Electronic driver-vehicle inspection reports are now formally permitted without ambiguity. No more paper dependency for DVIR compliance.

Liquid-burning flares and spare fuses are no longer required equipment. License plate lamp requirements are relaxed when a tractor is pulling a trailer. And tire load markings on sidewalls? That’s now the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s problem, not yours.

The agency acknowledged that each individual rule has “small or negligible” economic impact, but the cumulative effect on day-to-day operations is real.

So What? Small carriers and owner-operators benefit most here. Review the full rule list before your next fleet audit. Some of the changes allow you to retire equipment or eliminate recordkeeping steps that have been technically required but practically outdated.

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One in four carriers accounts for 7 in 10 truck crashes. The insurance system has known and done nothing.

A FreightWaves investigation into 2.8 million insurer-carrier relationships in Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) data reveals the structural failure at the heart of trucking safety: No federal or state law requires an insurer to check a carrier’s safety record before issuing a policy.

The top 5% of carriers by insurer portfolio risk generate 31.9% of all crashes and 31.8% of all fatalities. The highest-risk insurer portfolios, covering just 1.8% of all carriers, account for 16.9% of all crashes and 16.6% of all fatal crashes. Their weighted crash rate per carrier is 58.9, versus 1.13 in the safest tier.

The $750,000 federal insurance minimum, unchanged since 1980, should be about $2.2 million when adjusted for inflation. Instant-issue policies enable “chameleon carriers”: operators who cause catastrophic crashes, fold the company and reopen under a new DOT number with the same insurer, no questions asked.

So What? This isn’t a fringe problem for individual victims. It is a liability exposure that sits in your carrier base right now. If you’re a broker or shipper, the carrier vetting frameworks you use are the last meaningful safety gate in this system. The data is in the FMCSA database. It is your job to look.

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FMCSA’s non-domiciled CDL crackdown is more aggressive than the final rule suggested. Motor carriers need to act now.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s new FAQ on non-domiciled CDLs goes further than the final rule itself. Every eligible license must now display the word “non-domiciled” conspicuously on its face. Adding a restriction code is explicitly forbidden.

Licenses currently marked “temporary” are classified as non-compliant, not just outdated. States are being strongly encouraged to revoke and reissue them immediately rather than waiting for expiration.

E-2S status holders (spouses of treaty investors) are now ineligible. Form I-797C is no longer acceptable as evidence of status. And FMCSA now classifies “reinstructions” as new issuances, meaning in-person verification of H-2A, H-2B or E-2 status is required.

So What? Motor carriers need to audit driver qualification files now. If you have drivers holding licenses marked “temporary” or licenses that use a restriction code rather than the required face-of-card language, those credentials are non-compliant under the new guidance.

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From the Research Desk

Around the Freight Web

We might be on the brink of a market breakout. Rising rejections, firming spot rates and shrinking carrier counts are converging in ways that look less like a seasonal blip and more like a structural turn. More outbound lanes are showing rate strength than weakness. In February, that’s a signal worth watching.

Mexico freight may be U.S. trucking’s biggest stabilizer in 2026. Uber Freight data shows Mexican exports to the U.S. are up roughly 15% in recent months, driven broadly across manufacturing sectors rather than a single industry. Cross-border volumes are holding up where domestic markets have been volatile, and experts say the trend is structural.

How carriers and insurers are subsidizing failure. A companion piece to today’s “Dumping Ground” investigation: The mechanisms that allow high-risk carriers to keep operating despite a documented record of crashes and fatalities. The short answer is that no one in the insurance or regulatory chain is required to connect the dots.

Inside the gaps: What FMCSA isn’t catching in trucking safety. The third piece in FreightWaves’ safety enforcement series examines where the agency’s data systems and enforcement capacity fall short. Carriers with elevated crash histories can operate for months before meaningful intervention, if it comes at all.

What We’re Watching

▸ Tariff replacement actions from the White House. Trump has a backup plan, and he said so. Watch for an executive order directing the U.S. Trade Representative or Commerce Department to open Section 301 or Section 232 proceedings. Those come with investigative timelines of months. That means a window of reduced trade barriers before any new duties take effect. For importers, this is the window to move inventory on deferred orders.

▸ Customs refund logistics and CBP processing speed. The Court of International Trade is expected to move quickly on implementation orders, but Customs and Border Protection’s capacity to process reliquidation for $179 billion in collected duties is an open question. Watch for guidance on the timeline. Importers with significant exposure should engage trade counsel now.

▸ Trans-Pacific container bookings in the next 30 days. The 45-day shipping lag means any surge in import orders triggered by the tariff rollback won’t hit domestic freight markets until early April. Watch spot ocean freight rates on trans-Pacific lanes as the leading indicator. If they move, domestic intermodal and drayage volumes will follow.

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

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