This was supposed to be the year the trucking industry returned from the post-pandemic freight recession. A year ago, truckmakers expected equipment-buying booms to begin in 2025 as fleets looked to stock up on vehicles before EPA 2027 regulations made trucks more expensive. However, President Donald Trump wanted a trade war.
“Everybody we talked to—whether it’s equipment buyers, whether it’s dealers, whether it’s suppliers, OEMs, leasing companies—there’s almost a sense of paralysis in the marketplace because you can’t make a good business decision in a vacuum,” Ken Vieth, president of ACT Research, told me during this episode of Market Pulse on the FleetOwner YouTube channel. “I think the on again, off again—maybe I’m going to put them on, maybe we’ll have some reciprocal tariffs—it just goes on and on. It just just makes for a situation where it’s very difficult to invest.”
During the conversation, Vieth and I discussed the tariff impacts on trucking, the freight recession, overall economic uncertainty, and whether the 2027 truck prebuy could still happen. But the clearest answer to anything is “uncertainty,” which Vieth said is in the early running for the 2025 word of the year.
Freight recession and private fleets
We also explored the freight recession and how private fleets are impacting for-hire carriers. Vieth noted that U.S. Class 8 tractor retail sales fell below replacement levels for the first time in over three years, indicating a potential pullback in fleet growth. ACT Research suggests that private fleets have taken a significant market share from for-hire carriers in recent years, though this trend is still expected to slow in 2025.
Prebuy concerns and EPA regulations
The trucking industry grapples with more uncertainty surrounding the EPA’s clean truck regulations, particularly after EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin laid out his deregulation roadmap. While there was anticipation of a prebuy surge before the 2027 EPA rules, the regulatory uncertainty has cast doubt on whether that will materialize.
Economic outlook: Is a recession possible?
After the overall U.S. economy avoided a recession for the past four years, the economic outlook has turned since Trump’s trade war heated up this winter. Vieth revealed that ACT Research now has a recession forecast among its possibilities—a significant shift from earlier predictions of healthy economic growth in 2025. More tariffs increase these concerns.
What’s hopeful about 2025 for trucking?
Despite 2025's challenges, Vieth shared some optimisim. The recent slowdown in Class 8 tractor retail sales—while challenging for manufacturers in the nearterm—could allow carriers to focus more on profits now that set them up to buy more equipment in the future.
Potential plot twists
With all this uncertainty, predicting what will happen next can be challenging. But if anyone is going to present a plot twist, could it be the first U.S. president with a reality TV background? If the Trump administration adjusts its stance on tariffs, reasonable economic growth in 2025 is still possible, Vieth noted. Vieth believes that convincing Trump to abandon his protectionist impulses sooner rather than later would create space for the industry and the nation to rebound from the nascent trade war.
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