Fuel prices are weighing on both trucking and intermodal freight, but the latter mode still presents cost saving opportunities for shippers.

United Cargo, Air Canada Cargo and Cathay Cargo are among the airlines implementing fees to buffer the impact of higher jet fuel costs.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is changing commercial crossing hours at the Port of Eagle Pass, Texas, in an effort to reduce long wait times and ease congestion for trucks entering from Mexico.

The changes, which take effect Monday, prioritize loaded freight while shifting empty truck movements to later in the day — a move CBP says will better utilize morning capacity and speed up overall throughput, according to a CBP issued trade notice.

Under the new schedule, northbound empty commercial conveyances will only be processed from 12 p.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends, according to the CBP notice.

By pushing empty trucks to off-peak hours, CBP aims to:

• Reduce daytime congestion at inspection lanes
• Improve transit times for loaded freight
• Better align staffing and inspection resources with demand
• Increase predictability for shippers and carriers

Meanwhile, laden shipments, in-bond freight and formal entries will continue to move during standard hours, with weekday processing beginning as early as 7 a.m., maintaining priority access to the busiest morning crossing windows.

CBP officials said the changes are designed to address persistent congestion issues at Eagle Pass, where an influx of empty tractors has contributed to longer wait times at international bridges. 

“The lack of utilization of morning hours for laden shipments” was identified as a key bottleneck, according to the trade notice, which outlined ongoing coordination between CBP, local officials and trade stakeholders on both sides of the border.

The Port of Eagle Pass consists of a rail and vehicle bridge connecting it to Piedras Negras, Mexico. Eagle Pass is a city of about 28,000, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. It is about 140 miles southwest of San Antonio. 

The Eagle Pass adjustment reflects a broader trend across the southern border: prioritizing loaded freight and tightening operational controls on empty repositioning moves.

Data from CBP’s Laredo Field Office — which oversees Eagle Pass — shows the port handled more than 5,300 commercial truck crossings during the week of April 19-25, highlighting its role as a growing secondary gateway behind Laredo. 

Rail volumes through Eagle Pass also exceeded 9,800 crossings for the week.

Eagle Pass handled $3.58 billion in trade in February, with imports accounting for nearly three-quarters of total volume, underscoring the port’s role as a key inbound gateway for automotive and consumer goods from Mexico, according to U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by WorldCity.

While exports fell nearly 10% year over year, automotive-related trade continues to dominate both directions, highlighting the port’s growing importance in North American auto supply chains.

Eagle Pass trade snapshot (February 2026)

(Source: WorldCity / U.S. Census data)

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United Parcel Service plans to close an additional 27 parcel distribution centers this year as the company continues its aggressive cost restructuring to better align capacity with lower volumes and boost profitability, which fell 25% during the first quarter as short-term cost pressures outweighed growth in revenue per piece.

The integrated parcel delivery and logistics powerhouse completed 23 of 24 previously announced facility closures during the period and is on track to achieve its target of eliminating $3 billion in structural cost this year, company executives said during a Tuesday conference call with analysts to discuss first-quarter earnings. Other elements of the network reconfiguration include reducing 25 million labor hours and 30,000 positions through a combination of downsizing and automation.

The UPS (NYSE: UPS) downsizing is closely correlated with last year’s strategic decision to reduce ties with Amazon, its largest customer, and other B2C e-commerce platforms with low-yielding shipments and instead concentrate on premium segments, such as small-and-medium businesses, B2B, healthcare, automotive, electronics and returns logistics. During the first quarter, UPS reduced Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) volume by 500,000 pieces per day. By mid-year, UPS will have shed 2 million pieces per day in Amazon volume and $5 billion in revenue. 

Amazon represents 8.8% of UPS volume, down from more than 13% prior to last year.

“The market has changed and we’re adapting to it. We’re overturning the old industry assumption that scale alone drives profitability. Instead, we’re focused on premium segments like SMB, B2B and complex healthcare,” CEO Carol Tomé said. “Our strategy is working.… Volume and premium customer wins are driving meaningful revenue per piece growth.” 

UPS generated $3 billion in quarterly revenue from its healthcare logistics services for the first time during the January-to-March period. The growing trend of pharmaceutical companies shipping GLP-1 weight loss drugs direct to consumers rather than to distributors is another opportunity for UPS to gain business in the sector, she added.

Chief Financial Officer Brian Dykes said UPS will close 27 additional facilities this year, most of them in the second quarter. 

UPS reported consolidated revenue declined 1.4% to $21.2 billion, primarily due to an expected reduction in domestic volume (-8%), and adjusted operating profit of $1.3 billion. Total domestic air volume was down 8.9% and ground volume fell 7.9% because of the Amazon draw down. 

Adjusted earnings per share of $1.07 was down 28% year over, but ahead of Wall Street expectations. Domestic revenue fell 2.3% even as fuel surcharges and higher-quality customers drove up per-piece revenue by 6.5%. 

A better customer and product mix contributed to improved domestic revenue per unit. Average daily volume from smaller firms, who typically require more support and ship longer distances because they lack warehouses for regional distribution, increased 1.6% year over year. In the first quarter, small-and-medium businesses represented 34.5% of total U.S. parcel volume, the group’s best penetration in UPS history.

Higher domestic yields were more than offset by new expenses, including the lease of third-party aircraft to compensate for the grounding — and subsequent retirement — of 27 MD-11 freighters following a fatal November crash, the transition of Ground Saver volumes back to the U.S. Postal Service under a new last-mile delivery agreement, inclement weather and higher casualty insurance. Those factors forced UPS to pay $350 million in extra costs, increasing the cost-per-piece by 9.5% year over year, said Dykes.

In the first quarter, UPS tendered about 977,000 packages per day to the Postal Service, which represents about 44$ of the Ground Saver volume. The work flow ramped up over time because the companies had to coordinate labeling and other steps. UPS expects to tender about 1 million packages per day to the Postal Service during the second quarter, the CEO said.

Responding to a question about the USPS’s recent imposition of a temporary 8% transportation surcharge on parcel shipments, Tomé said, “The postal system tends to set the floor for the economy product, which is actually pretty good for the whole industry if they’re raising prices.”

Management reiterated expectations for profit growth in the second half as most restructuring and temporary pressures are behind them, while the shift to more profitable B2B delivery and logistics services gains momentum. During the current quarter, the company expects to complete the Amazon glide down, scale back the use of outsourced airlift as it brings on previously ordered Boeing 767 freighters and eliminate transitional costs associated with the Ground Saver handoffs to the USPS — moves that will save the company money. 

The extensive deployment of RFID tracking sensors across the parcel network and the expansion of drop-off locations for subsidiary Happy Returns are the types of upgrades that will retain and attract customers interested in premium service, Tomé said.

One of the key areas where UPS continues to support Amazon is returns. Amazon shoppers can use UPS Store, Staples, Ulta Beauty and other authorized shipping outlets for no-box, no-label returns that are handled by Happy Returns and moved by UPS vehicles.

Earlier this month, UPS agreed to cap its $150,000 voluntary buyout program for delivery and truck drivers at 7,500 individuals after opposition from the Teamsters union. Nearly 80% of the drivers who qualified for a severance package will leave in April. Tomé pushed back on suggestions the Teamsters undercut UPS’s plans, saying the target from the outset was to eliminate 7,500 positions. 

International

International package revenue increased 3.8% to $4.5 billion as revenue per piece increased 10.7% on a 6% drop in volume. Average daily domestic deliveries within foreign countries decreased 6.6% compared to last year led by a decline in Europe and international export volumes fell 5.5%. Most of the export decline was on trade lanes to the United States, where imports surged a year ago as businesses rushed to beat proposed U.S. tariffs and making year-over-comparisons more difficult than under normal circumstances. U.S. imports were down 16.4%, led by a 22.5% average daily decline from Europe and an 18.3% decline from China, FedEx’s most profitable trade lane. 

The effect from the April 2025 tariff bump and subsequent U.S. elimination of the de minimis exemption for small parcels will recede as the year goes on, making results in subsequent quarters look better by comparison. Tomé said the cross-border results were better than expected given geopolitical headwinds and noted that the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down Trump administration tariffs using emergency powers could result in increased import activity this year. 

The Iran war has incrementally raised costs for FedEx because of the need to reconfigure its network to avoid flying over dangerous airspace, which has increased flying time, fuel consumption and pilot compensation, management said. 

The company reiterated full-year guidance of adjusted operating margin of 9.6% and flat year-over-year revenue growth, saying improved revenue sources and higher productivity will drive margin improvement. Second-quarter revenue is projected to be up in the low single digits along with operating margin of 7.5% to 8.5%.

Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch.

Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com.

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On March 4, 2026, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, a case that originated from a December 2017 highway collision in which Shawn Montgomery was severely injured after a tractor-trailer veered off the road and struck his stopped vehicle on the shoulder of an Illinois highway. Montgomery sued not only the carrier and the driver but also C.H. Robinson, the freight broker that arranged the shipment, alleging that Robinson negligently selected Caribe Transport and its driver.

The question the Supreme Court is being asked to resolve is whether 49 U.S.C. Section 14501(c), the federal preemption provision of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, preempts a state common-law claim against a broker for negligently selecting a motor carrier or driver. The Seventh Circuit said yes, brokers are preempted. Montgomery appealed. A decision is expected by the end of June.

This is a case that the brokerage industry desperately wants to win and that plaintiff attorneys desperately want to lose. Understanding why requires understanding how carrier selection actually works in the current freight market, because the legal argument and the operational reality are running in completely different directions.

There is no uniform standard for how brokers select carriers. There is no federal regulation that specifies what vetting criteria a broker must apply before tendering a load to a motor carrier. There is no minimum requirement for how a broker evaluates a carrier’s crash history, out-of-service rate, violation patterns, or insurance quality before deciding to move freight. Every broker in America maintains its own procurement criteria, carrier approval standards, and definition of what constitutes adequate vetting. Some are rigorous. Many are not.

The satisfactory safety rating has become the de facto minimum standard for broker carrier selection, even though it is almost meaningless as a current indicator of carrier safety. According to Jack Van Steenburg, former executive director and chief safety officer of the FMCSA, approximately 19,000 motor carriers hold satisfactory safety ratings among the roughly 750,000 carriers with active operating authority in the United States. That is approximately 3 percent of the carrier population. The remaining 97 percent of carriers have no safety rating.

A safety rating is issued only after a compliance review, an on-site examination of motor carrier operations. The FMCSA lacks the resources to conduct compliance reviews for 750,000 carriers, which is why 97 percent of those carriers have never been rated. When a broker says their carrier procurement policy requires a satisfactory safety rating, they are effectively saying they will use any of the 750,000 active carriers in America, except for the small number that have undergone a compliance review and received a conditional or unsatisfactory finding. That is not carrier vetting. That is authority verification with an additional filter that eliminates less than one percent of the carrier population.

What brokers and shippers often overlook is data that actually tells you something about a carrier’s operational safety record. Out-of-service rates by vehicle and driver. Aggregate crash history, including fatal, injury, and property damage counts. Insurance cycling patterns that indicate a carrier is being dropped and repriced repeatedly. Whether the carrier’s principals appear connected to previously revoked or failed operations. Whether the carrier’s physical address is shared by dozens of other carriers at a virtual mail drop. Whether the carrier was formed six months ago with no operational history.

The argument that holding brokers liable under state negligence law would push them to hire only large, well-capitalized carriers, as broker advocates have argued before the Supreme Court, is, in effect, an admission that brokers currently hire carriers they would not hire if there were actual accountability attached to the selection. That is not an argument against broker liability. It is an argument for it.

What the industry needs to understand before the Supreme Court issues its decision is that the outcome in either direction does not solve the underlying problem. If the Court rules in Montgomery’s favor, brokers face negligent-hiring claims under state law. If the Court rules in favor of C.H. Robinson, brokers face no state tort liability for their carrier selection decisions. Neither outcome fixes the market failure. The market failure is that price pressure in spot freight brokerage has made carrier safety a secondary consideration in what should be the most safety-critical procurement decision in American surface transportation.

The answer to all three stakeholder questions, shipper, broker, and carrier, is that the legal framework will not solve a market incentive problem. Accountability only changes behavior when it is attached to the actual decision-maker in real time. A plaintiff verdict three years after a crash against a broker that has since changed its procurement policies does not change the rate email that went out to carriers last Tuesday afternoon, seeking the cheapest truck from Norfolk to Detroit. What changes the rate email is requiring brokers to maintain documented carrier selection criteria, apply that criteria consistently, and demonstrate that the criteria encompass more than a safety rating check.

The Supreme Court cannot mandate that. FMCSA could. It has chosen not to. Until it does, the rate is the rating, the motoring public is the last line of defense, and Shawn Montgomery is not going to be the last person standing on the shoulder of a highway when the wrong carrier comes through.

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On April 23, a State Department spokesperson confirmed on background that the Trump administration is processing commercial truck driver visa applications again, this time under stricter standards than the system that existed before eight months of regulatory overhaul forced a fundamental change to how foreign nationals obtain commercial driver’s licenses in the United States.

The Trump Administration is protecting Americans by preventing the entry of individuals who pose a threat to U.S. national security or public safety, including those who threaten safety on America’s roads. As part of a coordinated policy, the Department of State is thoroughly vetting and applying strict standards to every visa applicant seeking to operate a commercial truck in the United States, including ensuring applicants have sufficient English language skills, a valid U.S.-issued or U.S.-recognized CDL or the ability to obtain one, and a prior history of safe commercial truck operation.

That confirmation emphasizes eight months of the most aggressive overhaul of the non-domiciled CDL system since the credential category was created. To understand what was fixed, you need to understand what was broken, and it had been broken for a long time.

Every American CDL holder is tracked through the Commercial Driver’s License Information System, which captures violations, crashes, disqualifications, and out-of-service orders across all fifty states. When a carrier runs a background check, when a state issues a renewal, when a roadside inspector runs a license check, that history is there. It is the backbone of driver accountability in American commercial transportation.

For foreign nationals holding non-domiciled CDLs, none of that existed. A driver could arrive in the United States, present an Employment Authorization Document to a state DMV, and walk out with a Class A CDL. The EAD confirmed work authorization. It said nothing about whether that driver had a history of crashes, DUI convictions, license suspensions, or disqualifications in their home country. States had no mechanism to check because there is no international equivalent of CDLIS. The federal government knew it. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said so plainly when the final rule was announced on February 11, 2026. “For far too long, America has allowed dangerous foreign drivers to abuse our truck licensing systems, wreaking havoc on our roadways. This safety loophole ends today.” FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs added that “a critical safety gap allowed unqualified drivers with unknown driving histories to get behind the wheel of commercial vehicles” and that “if we cannot verify your safe driving history, you cannot hold a CDL in this country.”

The crashes that made the political cost of inaction too high came in a cluster. The official FMCSA record documents four fatal incidents in 2025 involving non-domiciled CDL holders who would be ineligible under the new rules. A February 14 multi-vehicle crash inside an I-80 tunnel in Wyoming killed three and injured 20. An August 12 illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike killed three more. An October 21 California highway collision involving eight vehicles killed three people. A December 3 collision with a train at a marked crossing in Ontario, California, killed a crew member. The August Florida crash was the political trigger. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced an immediate pause on the issuance of commercial truck driver visas within days.

Six weeks after that pause, FMCSA issued an emergency interim final rule. The agency’s own release described a nationwide audit that revealed widespread non-compliance among state driver licensing agencies. The rule closed the EAD pathway entirely and limited eligibility to holders of H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 visas, classifications that require consular vetting and interagency screening. The interim rule was stayed by the D.C. Circuit while legal challenges proceeded. The administration completed the full federal rulemaking process and published the final rule in the Federal Register on February 13, 2026, effective March 16.

The FMCSA press release stated that the nationwide audit exposed systemic non-compliance in more than 30 states, which had been illegally issuing tens of thousands of licenses to ineligible drivers. Twenty-eight states and jurisdictions were placed under special enforcement orders. The final rule added mandatory SAVE verification, requiring states to query the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system to confirm every applicant’s lawful immigration status before issuing a credential.

The FMCSA issued North Dakota a December 11 letter of a preliminary determination of noncompliance based on a sample audit of 526 non-domiciled licenses. The state was told to fix the deficiencies or risk losing $34.95 million in federal funds. Of the 526 credentials in the audit sample, approximately 150 met reissuance standards. Robin Rehborg, NDDOT Deputy Director for Driver Safety, announced recertification on April 13. Non-domiciled CDL applicants must now complete all transactions in person, present an unexpired foreign passport and valid immigration documentation, and accept credentials valid for only 1 year.

The recertified states as of April 23 include South Dakota, Iowa, Texas, Delaware, Utah, Rhode Island, North Dakota, Minnesota, and New Jersey. The structural changes are real. The EAD loophole is closed. Consular screening is now the background check mechanism that the system never had. Credentials expire with the driver’s authorized stay, rather than running for four-year terms, regardless of immigration status. The administration identified a decades-old gap, documented it with crash data and audit findings, drafted a rulemaking that survived a federal court challenge, and forced 28 states through compliance reviews that exposed systemic failures. That is a record worth stating plainly.

Or is it?

I’ve long emphasized the need for a federal commercial licensing program for Interstate CDL operators. Why? Well, because State management of commercial driver programs is more often than not an exercise in classic failure. The National Registry II program asked states to implement a basic digital upload feature for CDL medical self-certifications. It gave them ten years. We are nearly a year from the implementation deadline, and there are still states that have needed extension after extension to complete what anyone building software in 2026 could work out in a morning. That is not an isolated example. It is the pattern.

The non-domiciled CDL audit found more than 30 states issuing credentials improperly. Some of those states had been doing it that way for years before federal auditors looked. Systemic problems in bureaucratic institutions do not get fixed by a corrective action plan and a press release. They get fixed by sustained oversight, repeated audits, and consequences for backsliding. The initial audit created that pressure. Whether FMCSA maintains it after the political urgency fades is a different question.

The administration closed a real gap. The new system is meaningfully better than what existed before. The State Department confirmed the pathway is open and the standards are real. What is not confirmed is whether the states tasked with running that pathway every day, in every DMV office, with every applicant, have the institutional muscle to sustain what federal audit pressure forced them to fix.

The question many are asking is, “Why do we continue to participate in trial-and-error programs with US highway safety?”

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