Trump sics DOGE on the Navy but ignores China port fees
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order that moves the U.S. ahead on shipbuilding but doesn’t address controversial port fees on Chinese ships.
The order also directs Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to review how the Department of Defense orders new military vessels.
Trump’s directive calls for greater enforcement of the collection of the Harbor Maintenance Tax, including on imports entering the U.S. by land after unloading from ships at ports in Mexico and Canada.
Buried deep in the order was a call for DOGE to review vessel procurement processes by Defense and Homeland Security, with recommendations included in the Maritime Action Plan “to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these processes.”
The executive order follows up on Trump’s initiative calling for a revitalization of U.S. maritime capabilities. That followed an investigation by the Biden administration finding China had leveraged unfair advantages to seek a dominant position in global shipbuilding and shipping.
To blunt China’s maritime influence, the U.S. proposed punitive charges on Chinese ships of as much as $1.5 million per port call. But opposition by maritime-related businesses led the administration to back off on implementation of the charges pending further review.
The executive order directs the departments of State, Defense, Commerce, Labor, Transportation and Homeland Security, as well as the United States trade representative to jointly submit a Maritime Action Plan by Nov. 6 but provided few details on what the plan should include.
US rail traffic sees second double-digit increase of 2025
U.S. weekly rail traffic remained ahead of 2024 levels in the week that ended on Saturday, the sixth straight gain and just the second showing a double-digit increase.
According to the Association of American Railroads, volume for the week was 500,584 carloads and intermodal units, an 11.2% increase over the same week a year ago. That includes 226,790 carloads, up 8.5%, and 273,794 containers and trailers, a 13.6% increase.
(Chart: Association of American Railroads)
The only other week this year to see double-digit gains over 2024 levels was the week ending Jan. 18, when traffic jumped 25.9%.
Year to date, carload traffic is up 0.7%, and intermodal volume is up 8.7%. The total of 6,816,848 carloads and intermodal units represents a 5% increase over the first 14 weeks of 2024.
North American volume for the week, as reported by nine U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads, was 685,076 carloads and intermodal units, a 7% increase over the corresponding week in 2024. That includes 329,212 carloads, up 3.7%, and 335,865 intermodal units, up 10.3%.
North American volume through 14 weeks is 9,367,352 carloads and intermodal units, up 3.3% compared to the same period a year ago. That includes a 0.1% increase in Canada and an 8.2% drop in Mexico.
US Postal Service seeks letter price raise to 78 cents
Sending a domestic letter through the post office could cost 78 cents starting July 13, 5 cents more than the price of a first-class mail stamp today, if the Postal Regulatory Commission approves proposed adjustments for mailing services filed Wednesday.
The U.S. Postal Service said it notified the commission of plans to raise letter and postcard rates an average of 7.4%. A domestic postcard will cost 62 cents, up from the current 56 cents, while the price for sending an international postcard will increase by a nickel to $1.70. Rate changes apply to single-piece and metered mail.
Single-piece letters weighing more than an ounce will increase a penny to 29 cents for each additional ounce.
The Postal Service is also seeking price adjustments for its Special Services products. Notably, the Postal Service will apply a price reduction of 12% for postal insurance when mailing an item.
The quasicommercial agency said the price changes are needed to help achieve financial stability as it implements operational changes in a changing market to save money. Postal Service prices remain among the most affordable in the world, it said.
Following a directive from the commission, the Postal Service also filed two sets of prices for marketing mail and package services products. While only one set of rates will go into effect on July 13, these prices address the pending proposal to eliminate bound printed matter and expand marketing mail, pending the commission’s approval. The agency said it will provide more details on those changes in the future.
During the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, the organization narrowed its net loss to $140 million. It generated about $150 million in operating profit versus a $2 billion loss for the same period in the prior year.
Under a restructuring plan called Delivering for America, the Postal Service has reduced billions of dollars in costs by adjusting the logistics network to integrate delivery of mail and package categories and shift more air transportation to ground, and it has created new products, adjusted rates and persuaded Congress to repeal a requirement that the Postal Service prepay health plans for retirees.
The architect of the plan, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, abruptly left office last month.
New Mack long-haul truck makes grand entrance in bid for market share
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Truck manufacturers roll out new models all the time. What they don’t often do is bring a slew of journalists who write about trucking into New York City to talk about it.
But that happened earlier this week when Mack Trucks, a member of the Volvo Group, introduced the Mack Pioneer, the manufacturer’s attempt to improve on its current 2% (by its estimate) share of the over-the-road truck market in the U.S.
“We haven’t really achieved a lot of success in the long-haul market,” Fernando Couceiro, Mack’s vice president and product owner for highway trucks, said at a briefing with journalists shortly after they were transported to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for a first look at the new tractor. (A full reveal to the public at the Navy Yard occurred Tuesday evening.)
Couceiro said the Anthem, Mack’s current leading tractor offering, “is a great day cab product. We have a very strong position in the market. But we haven’t really achieved a lot of success in the long-haul sleeper segment.”
The Pioneer – which has an automatic transmission – is designed to change that, and Couceiro said Mack would be ready to begin taking orders on it Wednesday, the day after the Brooklyn revea to the media and in the bigger evening event to a larger group.
Throughout the two days, Couceiro and other Mack officials touted the key features of the Pioneer that are driving their enthusiasm.
Couceiro described it as “the most aerodynamic truck in the world.” The working project name for the Pioneer had the word Aero in it.
Specifically, he said by various measures, the combination of a number of changes – from the aerodynamic design to the digital mirrors – translates into an 11% increase in efficiency over the Anthem. He split that as a 3% improvement in power train efficiency and 8% from the aerodynamic features of the tractor.
The company highlighted the digital mirrors especially. In the press release announcing the Pioneer, Mack said the mirrors are a camera system that would produce about 1 percentage point of the 11% estimate of greater efficiency.
But the word that kept coming up in the discussions was “comfort.” It was one of the four features, along with driving efficiency, reliability and fuel efficiency, that Couceiro said drivers and buyers of the trucks sought in their purchases.
Lukas Yates, the brand designer for Mack Trucks who kicked off the presentation to the trucking media, said the design changes include a shift in the iconic bulldog that sits at the front of all Mack Trucks.
“Rather than sitting on a pedestal, the bulldog hood ornament is now integrated with the truck’s design, flanked by air intakes that help manage airflow under the hood, making it an integral part of the truck’s performance rather than just an emblem,” Yates said, according to the company’s prepared statement about the Pioneer launch.
Couceiro said the launch of the Pioneer did not mean the end of the Anthem, which will coexist for “a little while, and then there’s more to come.” He added that Mack expects to “reintroduce” its entire line of trucks within the next few years, and the Pioneer is the “first one out of the gate.”
For all the focus on the design, Couceiro said the ultimate key performance indicator would be market share.
“The lagging KPI is really market share,” he said. “It means we’re in the wrong place. The leading KPI really is whether people are willing to buy more and more trucks.”
The goal, Couceiro said, would be to add 5 to 6 percentage points in over-the-road market share via a successful rollout of the Pioneer. The time frame on that goal is now through 2030, he added.
“We want drivers to be bugging their fleet managers saying, ‘I want to drive that truck,’” Couceiro said. “So for me personally, that’s what I would consider a success when we get that feedback, and we have customers that are considering it for their long-haul applications.”
Mack officials said the Pioneer was tested at a driver clinic at Virginia Tech, whose Blacksburg campus coincidentally is near the site of the Volvo truck manufacturing plant, a sister operation to Mack Trucks within the Volvo Group. They said the test was unbranded so drivers did not know they were driving a Mack Truck, allowing them to “provide unbiased evaluations of the cab’s ergonomics and features,” according to the Mack statement.
Vince Lokers, Mack’s specialist and chief designer who led the creation of the cab, went through the wide range of changes Mack is spotlighting about the driver experience – among them a refrigerator under the seat, where the cupholders are, and an electronic logging device pivot that allows more movement of the ELD. It’s the full range of features inside a cab that can appear unimportant at first but which, as Lokers described it, are key to getting driver acceptance that your cab is better than the next guy’s. (And truck manufacturers compete fiercely over the little things.)
Included in the features that Mack has gone out of its way to highlight that would specifically target drivers:
Seats with armrests on both sides, which Mack said “ensures drivers’ arms travel with them on the suspension rather than resting on the fixed door panel.”
Holes in the steps to reduce the buildup of ice or snow.
Multiple configurations that include a day cab, three midroof sleepers of 44, 64 and 76 inches, and a 76-inch-high roof sleeper that allows the rear bunk to be “rotated” against the sleeper area’s real wall for more space. The presentation showed a small eating area in the place where the lower bunk would have been before it was folded up.
Frontal air bags as standard and a side air curtain protection system that is also part of the package.
Couceiro put a wrap on the message by discussing the experience behind the wheel. Conceding that he wasn’t a truck driver but had driven in numerous vehicles, he said the Pioneer is “easy to drive, but you feel powerful. … It feels like you’re driving a really luxurious pickup truck, not really a Class A heavy-duty tractor, right? So that’s at least my personal feedback of what comes to my mind in terms of, how does it feel to drive this amazing vehicle?”
Tax credits, truck limits top small railroads’ DC agenda
DENVER – Federal funding that serves as the lifeline of small U.S. railroads will continue to flow from Washington, experts say, but exactly when and how much is unclear at present.
That funding to-do list is led by the 45G tax credit and Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grants – critical issues during a legislative educational session at the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) conference here on Monday.
A bipartisan House bill to update the vital 45G tax credit, which underpins capital spending at many shortline and regional railroads, was introduced in January by Reps. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and Mike Thompson, D-Calif., the latter of whom is the chair and ranking member of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax.
Technically known as a railroad maintenance credit that is part of the IRS Code of 1986, 45G was created in 2005 and made permanent in 2021. It offers a tax credit of 40 cents per mile of track up to a maximum $3,500 – a figure that hasn’t changed in 25 years.
The new bill updates 45G to $6,100 per mile to account for inflation, and also indexes the credit to inflation. In addition, it allows expenditures for Class II and III track miles as of 2024, from the current cutoff date of 2015. A Senate version of the bill is also expected to be introduced.
The trade group is optimistic about passage of 45G, even with a 40% turnover in Congress since 2020, said Nicole Brewin, vice president, congressional affairs, for Washington-based ASLRRA.
CRISI funding this fiscal year is a mixed outcome. The grant program has been appropriated through September but cut almost in half, to $100 million from $199 million in FY 2024. That is in addition to $1 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) passed under the Biden administration.
Looking ahead to fiscal 2026, the ASLRRA has sent a letter to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development committees in both the House and Senate outlining appropriations requests for CRISI grants, the Short Line Safety Institute and the grade crossing safety program Operation Life Saver, among other programs.
The IIJA expires in September 2026, and ASLRRA President Chuck Baker in January testified before a House subcommittee on rail as to priorities for reauthorization. They include guarantees for CRISI funding including support for advanced appropriations, and reject efforts to permit longer, heavier trucks on the nation’s roads. On Thursday, the ASLRRA along with members Genesee & Wyoming and Watco will participate in a closed-door stakeholder listening session on surface transportation reauthorization priorities.
The ASLRRA has scheduled its annual Railroad Day on Capitol Hill lobbying blitz May 7, when the messaging agenda will include modal equity involving the Highway Trust Fund and federal truck size and weight (TSW) limitations; tax policy; permitting reform; and rail grants.
Lawmakers grill US trade official on tariffs’ impact on auto supply chains
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle tried to secure assurances from the country’s top trade official that automotive supply chains will not collapse and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement will remain strong as President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs take hold.
Jamieson Greer, who heads the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, has spent much of the past two days on Capitol Hill defending Trump’s tariff policy from a barrage of criticism coming almost exclusively from Democrats.
But concerns about tariff-induced disruptions to supply chains crossing the country’s Northern and Southern borders were raised by both parties at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Wednesday.
U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., whose district covers parts of Chicago, represents companies in the vehicle supply industry that assemble and produce cars for the automotive industry.
“The tariff impact on the automotive industry is massive, and may result in shutting down businesses within the automotive supply chains, which will harm the U.S. economy as a whole,” Davis told Greer.
“It would take years to adjust production and supply chains back to the U.S. In the meantime the auto sector will be hit by multiple layers of tariffs that will soak up any free cash that could be used for the very investments in the U.S. that the administration is seeking.
“Is the administration planning any relief for auto parts suppliers and the auto industry, and what other help can the government provide to these suppliers due to the most recent changes in tariffs?”
Greer did not reveal any plans for economic relief but instead pointed out that auto part imports that comply with the USMCA continue to come across the Mexican and Canadian borders duty-free, an exclusion that was included in Trump’s “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariffs announcement last week.
He also cited United Auto Workers’ support for the reciprocal tariffs as evidence that auto manufacturing and its supply chains will be strengthened and not harmed.
“It’s really critical that we protect our auto industry, and the autoworkers understand that,” Greer said. “We’ve accounted [in the USMCA] for parts that have content from the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and we have to be very deliberate about doing this to save this industry.”
U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., said the USMCA has been a major factor in growing and sustaining manufacturing in her district. While the agreement is not perfect, Miller said a review of the pact, due in 2026, can help improve it.
“What commitments can you make today regarding the USMCA review? Specifically how will you use this opportunity to advance President Trump’s goals of promoting domestic manufacturing?” Miller asked.
Greer responded that he has been meeting with his counterparts in Mexico and Canada, and plans “at some point” to initiate the review process as required by statute.
He also emphasized keeping countries that are not part of the USMCA from circumventing the agreement by using Canada and Mexico as export platforms.
“USMCA should be an agreement that promotes manufacturing in America, and that we can rely on our partners to the north and south if needed,” Greer said.
“But it can’t be a situation where countries like China or Vietnam can just come in, build a factory in Mexico, assemble [products] with parts from there, and send it across the border and get the benefit of an agreement where they’ve taken no obligation. I want to make sure it’s an agreement that helps America first.”
Zipline drone delivery takes flight in Texas with Walmart – for free
After hundreds of thousands of test flights and years of piloting drone delivery in the U.S., Zipline has officially taken flight in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with partner Walmart.
The world’s largest drone delivery provider announced Tuesday that residents located within 2 miles of a Walmart Supercenter in the suburb of Mesquite are eligible for delivery of more than 65,000 items in 30 minutes or less. Zipline told FLYING magazine the first order in Mesquite included a dozen eggs, a bag of Popcorners chips and flower bulbs for spring gardening. The company said Walmart (NYSE: WMT) will set the price of the service, which at launch is available for free.
The launch also marks the introduction of Zipline’s Platform 2 (P2) delivery system, a successor to its P1 designed for quiet, precise delivery in cities and suburbs – even in rain or 45 mph gusts of wind.
According to Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo Clifton, the service delivers 10 times faster than cars, with flight times for most orders under two minutes. Clifton said customers in Mesquite, who participated in a “secret” early access program over the past few months, have described the offering as “quiet,” “gentle” and “magical.”
“We’ve been blown away by the feedback from our early customers,” said Conner Wilkinson, head of community engagement at Zipline, in a statement accompanying Tuesday’s announcement. “In just a few weeks, we’ve already become a part of people’s daily routines, especially for busy parents like myself, older adults, and anyone else who wants to spend more time doing things they love and less time running errands.”
Tuesday’s launch, though, “significantly” expands the number of customers who can order delivery, Zipline said. Customers can download the Zipline app or visit the company’s website to see if their household is eligible – that includes multifamily dwellings such as apartment complexes. Once signed up, they can place orders between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. CDT on weekdays and 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. on weekends.
On Saturday from noon to 3 p.m., Zipline will host a public event at the Mesquite Supercenter to share more information about the service.
“We’re seeing the dawn of a new era of robotic instant logistics that is going to become an indispensable part of our lives,” Clifton wrote in a post on X. “After 4 years and hundreds of thousands of test flights, teleportation is finally here.”
A long time coming
Since its first deployment in 2016, Zipline has completed nearly 1.5 million deliveries. In March, the firm revealed that its all-electric drones have collectively flown more than 100 million miles, which it said is equivalent to driving on every road in the United States 24 times. But before this week, it had yet to break into the U.S. home delivery market.
Other than a pilot program with Walmart in Arkansas, launched in 2021, Zipline has focused heavily on long-range deliveries of medical cargo, including blood and lifesaving vaccines, to rural, hard-to-reach places in Sub-Saharan Africa – countries such as Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya. In Rwanda, for example, it delivers 75% of the country’s blood supply outside the capital, Kigali. In the U.S., it is partnering with health care providers such as Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic and Intermountain Health, with which it launched a service in Utah in 2022.
Recently, Zipline has looked to diversify. Last year, Walmart announced plans to offer drone delivery to 1.8 million households in DFW, where the FAA in June lifted certain restrictions for Zipline and fellow Walmart partner Wing. It is one of a handful of drone operators with Part 135 air carrier permissions and authorized for operations beyond the visual line of sight of the pilot. The launch of home delivery in Mesquite heightens the firm’s competition with Wing, which has made about 450,000 residential deliveries since 2012.
It also introduces P2, designed for urban delivery with what Clifton has described as “dinner plate-level” precision.
Announced in 2023, P2 actually comprises two aircraft: a drone and a smaller “Zip” that is designed to stow inside it. Unlike the fixed-wing P1 aircraft – which launches like a glider and has a round-trip range of 120 square miles – P2 drones have a 10-square-mile service radius and take off vertically using five propellers before transitioning to winged cruise. They are also slightly faster and can carry 8 pounds of cargo, compared to 6 pounds for P1.
The key to P2, though, is the Zip. The autonomous, microwave-size droid is deployed from the drone on a tether, using onboard fans and sensors to guide itself to hard-to-reach landing spots, such as a customer’s doorstep. After cargo is released, the tether spools back up, and the Zip stows away. Recent upgrades have made both aircraft resistant to heat, downpours and “gale-force winds.” The company is also testing the “Zipping Point,” an easy-installation curbside mailbox designed to autonomously load packages in seconds.
Zipline made its first P2 delivery in January to an unspecified fire department. In the next few weeks, it will add Waxahatchee as the second P2 site in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with plans to scale its presence in the area “significantly” over the next five months, the company told FLYING.
Zipline’s Dallas-Fort Worth launch comes just months after Walmart parted ways with longtime collaborator DroneUp, which at one point operated 36 hubs across seven states. That leaves Zipline and Wing to pick up the slack. Competitor Amazon Prime Air, meanwhile, returned to action last week after a voluntary two-month pause in service.
Container rates see uptick as tariffs shock supply chain
The upheaval in global trade following President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements is sending shockwaves through international markets and supply chains.
But that’s been good news, however temporary, for container rates that had been trending down for some time, analyst Freightos said in its weekly update.
At the forefront of this trade war escalation is China, now facing a staggering minimum duty of 54% on all goods exported to the U.S., with some items subject to over 70%, and as much as 129%, in tariffs, after a new 50% duty announced by the White House Wednesday. This dramatic increase compounds existing Trump and Biden-era duties, creating a formidable barrier for Chinese exporters and U.S. importers alike.
The ripple effects of these policy changes extend far beyond U.S.-China trade relations, said Freightos research chief Judah Levine, in the update. Many Asian countries that had previously benefited from trade diversion are now also subject to steep tariffs. This shift is forcing importers to reevaluate their sourcing strategies and supply chain configurations.
In response to the U.S. measures, China has already announced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports. Other major trading partners, including Canada and the EU, are considering or implementing their own countermeasures. This tit-for-tat approach threatens to further destabilize global trade flows and increase the likelihood of a broader economic recession.
The immediate impact on ocean freight has been swift. Shippers scrambled to load final shipments before the new tariffs took effect, leading to a short-term surge in demand for container space and even shifts to less-than-containerload (LCL) and air cargo options. However, this burst of activity is expected to give way to a significant drop in container demand to the U.S. in the coming months.
For the week that ended on Friday, Asia-U.S. West Coast container rates increased 3% to $2,246 per forty-foot equivalent units, according to the Freightos Baltic Index. Asia-U.S. East Coast prices increased 5% to $3,541 per FEU.
Looking ahead, the Port of Los Angeles anticipates a 10% decrease in volume for the second half of the year. This decline could be exacerbated by growing overcapacity in the container market, along with a recession potentially leading to a collapse in freight rates reminiscent of the 2008 financial crisis.
Indeed, as capacity continues to grow from newbuild introductions on the major trade lanes, even with Red Sea diversions continuing to absorb capacity, rates out of Asia have fallen sharply since Lunar New Year, with container prices now beneath their 2024 floor.
Rates rebounded by a few hundred dollars per FEU on the trans-Pacific on start-of-month general rate increases last week, though no bump came through for Asia-Europe lanes, as carriers increase capacity management efforts. The expected tariff-driven drop in demand will only put more downward pressure on rates.
Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10%, except on China
In a continuing whirlwind of policy changes, President Donald Trump on Wednesday dropped tariffs under his new trade plan to 10% on imports from most countries for 90 days.
Trump also said in a social media post that he was raising tariffs imposed on imports from China to 125%.
“Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump wrote.
He unveiled a broad “reciprocal” tariff plan for all U.S. trade partners April 2, including a baseline 10% tariff on trade partners, as well as 25% tariffs on certain imported vehicles and auto parts arriving into the U.S.
The wide-ranging reciprocal tariff policy went into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, including various levies on imports from about 90 U.S. trading partners.
More than 75 countries have contacted U.S. officials to negotiate a solution to trade tariffs, according to Trump.
Tariffs hit 100-year high: Ports, drayage, trucking and retail impacts | WHAT THE TRUCK?!?
On episode 824 of WHAT THE TRUCK?!? Dooner is waking up with the rest of the world to the new tariff world order. With reports of ocean bookings plummeting, small shippers getting hit with customs bills they can’t afford, and financial markets in disarray – how bad will freight get hit?
Junction Collaborative Transport COO Ian Weiland brings the port trucking perspective as his drayage firm services the SoCal ports. We will find out what the word on the ground is and will ocean volume declines drive the truck load market back into a freight recession?
Eric Williams just founded a FreightTech firm focused on RFPs called Beagl Technologies. Williams also just left a gig with Target’s logistics team. We’ll get deep insight on how retail will handle tariffs. We’ll also find out how Beagl plans to shake up the RFP process, and how freight bids are looking now.
Catch new shows live at noon EDT Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on FreightWaves LinkedIn, Facebook, X or YouTube, or on demand by looking up WHAT THE TRUCK?!? on your favorite podcast player and at 5 p.m. Eastern on SiriusXM’s Road Dog Trucking Channel 146.
