Truck parts operations are taking a wait and see approach to President Donald J. Trump’s trade and tariff activity.
Back in February, only 19% of Trucks, Parts, Service survey responders reported they increased purchasing levels to protect against potential price inflation and supply chain disruption due to tariffs.
Two months later, the sentiment is mostly unchanged. Distributors are more plugged into global trade today than they may have been in January, but overwhelmingly their focus remains on meeting customer demand.
With confusion around what’s next, many distributors are choosing to maintain the status quo than risk shifting gears in choppy waters.
“With so much volatility and uncertainty surrounding the recent tariffs, we have not found a compelling reason to increase purchases,” Geoff Garafola, COO at Inland Truck Parts & Service told TPS on April 7. “We do continue to monitor and evaluate tariff-related information from our suppliers, other industries and the media, looking for opportunities to make strategic purchasing and inventory decisions.”
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“Although the topic has been widely discussed across the industry, concrete details around tariff implementation have been limited,” added VIPAR Heavy Duty to TPS on April 9. “As a result, most of our distributors are taking a measured and conservative approach — choosing to wait for more clarity before making significant adjustments to their purchasing strategies or inventory levels.”
Other distributors agree, noting updating purchasing to stay ahead of tariffs is basically impossible in the current climate anyway considering how quickly changes are occurring.
“Part of the problem of buying ahead in the case of China is we haven’t really had enough notice to do anything about it,” Mike Callison Jr., president and CEO at Midwest Wheel Companies, told TPS on April 10. Tariffs on some Chinese goods hit a startling 145% on April 9. “It takes at least eight weeks for an order from China to make it to door, so you run a risk of it being delayed and getting hit with a tariff.”
Distributors also note not every tariff is created equal — both in tax rate and influence on operations. In the truck parts business, the 25% tariff on steel and aluminum is already looming large.
That’s the one area where Momentum Truck Group has been willing to more active with its purchases, President and General Manager Jon Pearson and Director of Parts Brandon Lotz told TPS on April 3.
“We have made some volume purchases specifically on items that have heavy content of steel and aluminum and are very price competitive,” they said. “But beyond that, we have not been feeling any pressure to increase our inventory levels beyond the established levels based on past sales.”
“That’s the one place where we’ve actually had price increases,” Marc Karon, president at Total Truck Parts, told TPS on April 8. “We have a vendor who raised prices due to the cost of steel [in their product].”
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Karon said Total Truck Parts expects similar price updates for other product lines in the months ahead, but isn’t trying to outrace them. With so much uncertainty regarding the length, scope and economic impact of tariffs, Karon said he’d rather operate with business as usual and manage a few price increases here and there than trying to predict the exact impact the taxes will have on his customer’s operations.
Over-the-road carriers make up just a subset of Total Truck Parts’ business, so Karon is hopeful any downswings in freight will have little impact on his operations.
“We’re heavy into construction, agriculture, waste haulers — those trucks have got to run,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what the tariffs are.”
But distributors also have little doubt tariffs will impact freight in some capacity.
“While it is still too early to determine the exact impact tariffs may have on freight volumes, we anticipate a negative effect,” said VIPAR Heavy Duty. “Tariffs are generally expected to contribute to an inflationary environment, which historically has not been favorable for freight activity. Additionally, current market sentiment includes growing concerns about a potential economic slowdown, with some recessionary language being used across the industry. This is already creating downward pressure on freight volumes, and we expect that trend could continue if tariffs are implemented as projected.”
Garafola holds a similar position. “The overall impact is hard to predict but it is hard to imagine these new tariffs will do anything but drive freight volumes down. The real question is how fast the freight sector can rebound and recover. We will have to wait and see how producers and consumers react, and how the economy at large responds.”
Others are more uncertain.
“That is a tough question at this point,” said Pearson and Lotz. “According to some of our customers, they will potentially see their freight locations change depending on what type of product they haul.”
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“I am not so sure at this moment in time,” added Callison. “I don’t think we’ll see a significant impact one way or another, I think it will just be more volatile than what it has been in the past. I could see situations where everyone is trying to move things around before a tariff deadline/stock up, then freight falling after implementation. However, I believe all of that is short term and probably doesn’t change the overall volume moving through the system.”
In the meantime, most distributors said they will rely on vendor partners to communicate tariff impacts through their supply chain. Thus far, the distributors said they haven’t heard much as vendors are still trying to understand the tariffs just like everyone else.
“I think everyone is in the same boat here, there is an extreme lack of clarity on what is included and what is not,” says Callison. “The vendors are struggling to get clarity ahead of the actual implementation of the tariffs, which causes a lot of uncertainty.”
Added Pearson and Lotz, “We have been getting told by some of our vendors to expect some form of increase, but they were waiting for clarity regarding the specific tariff amounts.”
“You can tell there is a lot of uncertainty in this administration’s execution on tariffs spanning from the variety of effective dates, percentages, postponements and, most recently, reciprocal tariffs,” said Garafola. “All the tariff activity creates an iterative cycle of communication and cost changes that must be dealt with throughout the entire supply chain.”
As an intermediary supporting vendors and their supply chain, VIPAR Heavy Duty said it has focused its recent efforts into being an effective messenger.
“Through our robust communications platform, we’re able to share timely updates directly with our distributors. Individual supplier announcements are disseminated in near real-time as we receive them, ensuring our network is equipped with the most current information,” the company said.
“In addition, we leverage our private online portals as a central resource for communicating tariff-related updates and providing easy access to supporting documentation. We’ve also made several tools available to help distributors navigate these developments more effectively. One key resource is our Tariff Status Report, which is sent weekly and consolidates communications and pricing updates in a clear, organized format.”
In this environment, distributors say clarity wherever possible is essential.
“With these tariffs, the amount of change and uncertainty makes it difficult to tell customers anything more than they have already gathered from their own experience and sources,” Garafola said.
“We have a process for price increases and we’ll use that when we can,” added Karon. “It’s hard when we don’t know what’s going to happen next.”
