We Hit 6,000 Locations!

Record imports now, an August cliff. Plus diesel snaps its 8-week slide.

Author

Reed Loustalot
July 17, 2026

TRUCK PARKING CLUB

Friday Bulletin • July 17, 2026

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The Big Thing

This Month's Freight Is Borrowed. The Bill Comes Due in August.

The ports are having the busiest month in their history, and that is not the good news it sounds like.

U.S. container imports are on track to hit 2.47 million containers in July, the heaviest single month any American port network has ever moved, topping the record set back in May 2022. This is not demand roaring back. It is a deadline. The temporary 10 percent tariff that has been in place since February expires July 24, and a heavier round is expected as early as August. Importers are pulling fall and holiday freight forward to beat the clock.

That front-loading is a big part of why your July has felt busy and why rates have held up. Forecasters expect it to fade fast. Imports are projected to fall about 4.5 percent in August and keep sliding through November, because the autumn freight that normally moves then is moving right now instead. The peak is real. It is just borrowed from September and October.

For the next couple of weeks the freight is there. Port and drayage lanes are running hot, spot rates went into the month roughly 55 percent above last year, and one of the largest brokers is forecasting July truckload spot rates up around a third from a year ago. That is leverage, and it is in your hand right now. Book the loads, hold your number, and do not assume the phone rings this loud in six weeks.

Watch July 24. If the tariff lapses and the August round lands, the pull-forward stops and the back half of summer thins out. Plan your month around the freight that exists today, not the freight the summer got you used to.

The trucks are moving because the calendar says so. When the calendar flips, so does the market.

Mile Markers

Where the numbers landed this week.

Diesel: $4.796/gal, up about 22 cents on the week. That ends an eight-week slide and is the first weekly increase in two months. Even after the jump it sits about a dollar above where it was a year ago. (EIA)

Spot rates (all-in, national average): Van $3.05, Reefer $3.43, Flatbed $3.67 per mile. The post-holiday cooldown showed up on schedule, with all three equipment types giving back a couple of cents as freight settled after the Fourth and the July lull set in. The market is still running well above a year ago. (DAT)

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News

Van Spot Rates Just Beat Contract for the First Time Since 2022. DAT's latest read shows rates climbing faster than freight volumes, a gap that points to trucks leaving the road rather than a demand boom. Linehaul rates ran up 45 percent for van, 39 percent for reefer, and 40 percent for flatbed against last year, the biggest jumps since 2021, and the national van spot rate finally topped the contract rate for the first time since February 2022. For anyone running their own authority, the leverage is on your side of the table right now, so price every load like it. Read more on DAT

Wyoming Closed Its I-80 Evanston Truck Lots Until Halloween. If you run I-80 through the southwest corner of the state, the eastbound and westbound parking areas at mile marker 6 near Evanston shut down on July 13 and stay closed through October 31. WYDOT started a project that will add roughly 365 new spaces, paid for with a federal grant, but that payoff is years out and the closure is now. Expect shoulder work and lane closures through the summer, and plan your shutdown before you reach that stretch. Read more on The Trucker

A Top Intermodal Carrier Just Shed Nearly a Billion in Debt. STG Logistics, one of the largest drayage and intermodal operators in the country, came out of Chapter 11 on July 9 after wiping out close to $1 billion in debt, most of it tied to its 2022 purchase of XPO's intermodal business. New owners, fresh capital, and a much lighter balance sheet mean a major competitor for port and rail freight is not going anywhere. With the import wave cresting this month, it is one more sign the fight over containerized freight is heating up, not cooling down. Read more on Trucking Dive

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