The status of the trucking economy isn’t great these days. Speaking at the 2025 National Trailer Dealers Association (NTDA) Convention Wednesday in Tucson, Ariz., ACT Research President and Senior Analyst Ken Vieth admitted that wasn’t news to anyone in the audience. The economic uncertainty created by trade and tariff actions has extended the freight recession into its third year, and as carriers fight to remain solvent and profitable in a depressed market, they’ve been forced to limit their investment in new equipment.
None of this was something the industry didn’t see coming. President Donald J. Trump made his desire to enact tariffs clear on the campaign trail and in the lead up to his inauguration, and within days of returning to the White House he started announcing levies that would impact both freight volumes and equipment and parts pricing.
The good news, Vieth shared at NTDA, is bad times can’t last forever. The external pressures driving new equipment purchases downward appear more likely to impact truck orders than trailers in 2026 and beyond, and even tariff relief could be right around the corner.
Trucking has some tough months ahead but a bounce back is coming. Vieth says ACT’s analysis shows a market turnaround beginning mid-2026 with a multi-year recovery to follow. We just have to get there.
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In the freight space, Vieth says carrier rates are finally rising after some rough years but remain unable to keep up with inflation. Driver availability is tightening too — reaching its best levels in three years in June — and could improve even more amid the FMCSA’s crackdown on non-domiciled CDL holders.
The problem is freight volumes.
Tariffs have created a volatile, unpredictable freight environment, with levels swinging wildly on a monthly basis depending on when new levies are implemented or announced.
Vieth says one stabilizer could be the removal of IEEPA and reciprocal tariffs, which researchers estimate account for nearly two-thirds of all tariffs. He says Yale’s Budget Lab estimates current enacted and proposed tariffs at an average of 17.9%, well below the 2.4% average from 2024. Vieth says the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case around the IEEPA tariffs on Nov. 5, after they were ruled unconstitutional by an International Trade Court and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Let’s keep our fingers crossed the Supreme Court and my interpretation of tariffs are the same,” he says.
As for the trailer space, Vieth says the flatbed market has been the strongest segment of the industry throughout 2025 and that is expected to continue entering 2026. He says where changes, and purchases, must occur, is the reefer segment. Today’s reefer fleet is “as old as it’s ever been” and Vieth says he is shocked carriers aren’t doing more to turn that equipment over.
In the dry van space, Vieth says ACT’s data indicates the fleet age is in line with historical averages but will likely increase in the coming months. Longer term, he says dry van demand will pick up as soon as freight demand allows. For-hire dry van carrier profits are at their lowest non-COVID levels since the Great Recession. A reduction in tariffs (both in scope and rates) would go a long way, he says, as would improvements to industrial production, consumer spending or other macroeconomic conditions.
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Pressures on new truck pricing could spring trailer orders too. A 25% tariff on new trucks looms, as does regulatory uncertainty. Vieth says EPA’s openness to consider amending the its Low NOx regulation doesn’t mean the rule is going away, and Vieth believes it is possible those engines will hit the market in 2027 regardless of regulatory policy. He says if that’s the case, there will be carriers that delay their orders to avoid the new trucks and their additional cost, and could instead allocate their cap ex spending in 2027 into other areas, such as trailers. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s possible, and Vieth says carriers are likely still going to want to bring in new equipment where it makes sense.
And that theory is visible in ACT’s trailer production forecast. Vieth says ACT estimates production levels of 188,000 units this year with leaps forward annually through model year 2029, where the company is forecasting production at 309,000 units, effectively even to what the market saw in 2022.
In the meantime, “trailer demand remains stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Vieth says.
ACT Research's U.S. trailer production projections for 2025 are weak but improve dramatically in the final years of the decade.
