Fight over truck broker contracts awaits Trump’s next move

WASHINGTON — In May 2020, President Donald Trump sided with owner-operators lining the National Mall with their rigs protesting alleged price gouging by truck brokers.

“All they want is to be treated fairly, and we’re going to treat them fairly,” Trump told hosts of the morning show “Fox & Friends” at the time. “They’re great people, and they’re successful. They have these big, beautiful trucks. … They’re not asking for much, so we’re going to take care of them.”

Almost five years later, on Jan. 21, 2025, the comment period will end on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Broker Transparency rulemaking, which was rolled out last year in response to petitions filed by small-business truckers during the 2020 protests. The proposed rule would impose tough new standards on contracts between brokers and shippers, with the goal of giving motor carriers easier access to rate information.

Following the comment period – which ends the day after Trump is inaugurated – his FMCSA will have to decide whether to issue a final rule, delay action on it or revoke it altogether. It’s unclear if his administration will continue to support truckers on the issue.

“If there’s anybody who thinks they can predict what President Trump is going to do, they’re probably not going to be in any industry very long,” said Chris Burroughs, president and CEO of the Transportation Intermediaries Association, which lobbies on behalf of brokers and is adamantly against the proposed rule.

Speaking Wednesday on a webinar panel hosted by the National Industrial Transportation League (NITL) discussing the prospects for the proposed rule, Burroughs acknowledged Trump’s siding with truckers in May 2020, just after the beginning of the pandemic when freight rates had plummeted due to overcapacity in the trucking market.

Trump was also facing reelection, and many saw his attention to the issue as trying to placate a portion of his voter base, which included owner-operators.

“So we don’t know – we’re educating where we can, we’re working with Trump’s transition tea…

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