Will Relatively Stable Freight Rates Stay That Way in 2025?

Shippers are holding their collective breath to see how a rash of uncertainties surrounding the U.S. and global economies will impact freight rates in 2025.

The usual factors — oil prices, seasonal demand, overall strength of consumer markets and labor supply — are all at play. Add to that wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the simmering trade dispute between the U.S. and China, and the trade policies of the new Trump administration, and the picture gets cloudier still.

Given those conditions, one might find it surprising that current rates for truck, ocean and air freight are as stable as they are. Yet it feels like that state of affairs could change at any moment.

Trucking

The trucking market can be subject to wild swings in capacity, as operators regularly come and go in line with shifting consumer demand, and affect rates accordingly. In fact, the sector is still marked by overcapacity, resulting from the entry of many new players with the fading of the COVID-19 pandemic. Truckload carriers had a “pretty muted” peak season in the last quarter of 2024, due in part to extremely cold weather in some parts of the country that lasted into the early part of 2025, says Ken Adamo, chief of analytics with DAT Freight & Analytics.

That was followed by the usual post-holidays slowdown, which can extend into early March — “the doldrums of the…