Freight Inflation Just Became the Macro Story

Freight inflation just became the macro story. Friday’s CPI print held headline inflation at 3.4%, with the energy index up 2.1% on the month and fuel oil up 52% year over year, and futures markets moved to close to 90% odds that the Federal Reserve raises rates on September 16. The same week, retail diesel set an all-time record at $5.967 a gallon, truckload spot rates rose across every equipment type for the first time since May while volumes fell 15% after Labor Day, and UPS, FedEx and Amazon Shipping all published holiday surcharges roughly 25% above last year’s. Cargo is still moving: the Port of Los Angeles just closed the busiest three-month stretch in its history and the NRF now expects September imports to run 9.6% above last year. But the consumer funding that cargo is thinning. Kroger cut its full-year identical-sales guidance to 0.2% to 0.8% and described its shopper as “disciplined.” And on the northern border, the trade fight with Canada escalated from tariffs to outright import bans under a 1930 statute most compliance teams have never filed against. The cost of moving goods is rising faster than the demand for moving them, and the central bank is about to make carrying them more expensive too.

Retail & Consumer Spotlight: A Record Import Peak Meets a Disciplined Shopper

Kroger Says the Quiet Part

Kroger’s second quarter, reported Friday, is the cleanest read this month on the grocery consumer because grocery has almost no tariff refund noise to strip out. Identical sales excluding fuel rose 0.2%, down from 3.4% a year ago, and management cut the full-year range to 0.2% to 0.8% from 1% to 2%. CEO Greg Foran called the customer “disciplined”: traffic edged up, but basket size fell, with higher fuel prices and reduced SNAP benefits doing the damage. The company held its EPS guidance at $5.10 to $5.30 on cost control, e-commerce growth of 20%, and retail media profit up 24%, while flagging higher shrink and transportation costs as margin headwinds. That last item is the one to watch. When the country’s largest traditional grocer names transportation cost in the same breath as shrink, freight has moved from a line item to a P&L variable.

The Assortment Cut Is the Tariff Strategy Now

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that retailers and brands are responding to tariff and transport costs by shrinking what they sell. Under Armour has cut more than 25% of its product line over two years, and CEO Kevin Plank framed the goal as “selling so much more of so many less things at a much higher full-retail price.” A British Standards Institution survey found roughly one in four U.S. companies intends to cut offerings within six months. This is the rational move when landed cost is volatile: fewer SKUs means fewer origin countries to qualify, fewer tariff classifications to defend, and less slow-moving inventory to finance at rates that may rise next week. It also means the supplier base gets rationalized with it. Vendors on the long tail of a retailer’s assortment should assume they are being evaluated for deletion, not renegotiation.

Peak Season Refuses to End, and That Is Not Good News

The Port of Los Angeles handled 955,907 TEUs in August, flat to last year and 6% above the five-year average, capping a June-to-August run of 2.9 million TEUs, the busiest consecutive three months in port history. Executive Director Gene Seroka said “September is shaping up to be another strong month.” The NRF and Hackett Associates agree: their Global Port Tracker now forecasts 2.31 million TEUs nationally in September, up 9.6% year over year, with NRF’s Jonathan Gold admitting “we thought the peak season would be mostly behind us by now, but that’s not the case.” Read this alongside Kroger. Importers are not pulling cargo forward because the shopper is strong. They are pulling it forward because two tariff clocks, the November 10 China truce expiration and a Canadian front that escalated again this week, make October cargo more expensive than September cargo. That is hedging, not demand. The inventory it creates will be sold through into a rate-hiking cycle with holiday parcel surcharges up a quarter: UPS peak residential fees rise to $0.75 from $0.60, FedEx to $0.80 from $0.65, and Amazon Shipping matched the $0.75 peak charge in its first holiday season open to all shippers.

Global Logistics Pulse: Every Cost Line Moved the Same Direction

Ocean: The September 1 GRI Verdict Is In, and It Split by Lane

Drewry’s World Container Index held at $4,476 per 40-foot box on September 10, stable for a second week, but the composite hides a clean lane divergence that answers last edition’s open question about whether carriers could make the September 1 increases stick. On the transpacific they largely did: Shanghai to Los Angeles rose to $7,352, up 8% from the $6,802 reading three weeks ago, and Shanghai to New York edged to $9,726. On Asia to Europe they failed outright: Shanghai to Genoa fell to $4,216, down 23% from $5,506 on August 20, and Shanghai to Rotterdam slid to $3,997. The mechanism is the same on both lanes, carrier capacity management against soft demand, and it only works where the capacity withdrawal outruns the volume decline. Carriers are now pre-positioning for the next test: eight blank sailings are announced for next week, MSC has pulled two transpacific and four Asia-Europe sailings around China’s October 1 to 7 Golden Week, and the September 15 GRI lands into that thinned schedule. Shanghai congestion has eased from 94 hours to 64 hours of waiting time, so the typhoon-driven queue from late August is clearing. Underneath all of it, Container Trades Statistics reported record global volume of 17.3 million TEUs in July, up 4.5% year over year, with its price index up 37% against July 2025. Volume is at an all-time high and rates are rising at double-digit rates anyway. That is a supply-managed market, and it argues for staying short on Asia-Europe and buying only what you must on the transpacific through Golden Week.

Diesel: A Record With No Reserve Behind It

The Department of Energy’s weekly retail diesel average printed $5.967 a gallon, up 36.8 cents in a week and above the $5.816 peak of June 2022. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel futures settled at $4.80 on Wednesday, the highest close outside the April 2022 short squeeze. The driver is structural, not seasonal. Roughly 3 million barrels a day of Gulf refining capacity remains offline from the conflict, and the Strait of Hormuz is running about 12 commercial transits a day against a prewar baseline near 100, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence and Kpler tracking, while the Joint Maritime Information Center still rates the risk “severe” over uncharted mines. Jeffrey Currie’s observation that strategic petroleum reserves no longer function as “insurance policies” is the relevant framing for shippers: there is no policy lever waiting to knock this price down. Fuel surcharge tables built on $3.50 diesel are now transferring roughly 70 cents a mile of cost between shipper and carrier, and whoever wrote the table is winning.

Truckload: Rates Rise as Volume Falls, Which Is the Point

Truckload spot rates rose across dry van, reefer and flatbed in the latest week, the first simultaneous increase since May, according to FTR and DAT. DAT’s dry van linehaul rate, excluding fuel, reached $2.21 a mile, up 33.6% year over year and 21% above the nine-year seasonal average; the load-to-truck ratio of 11.47 compares with 6.68 a year ago. SONAR’s National Truckload Index hit $3.44 a mile all-in, up 47% year over year, even as tendered volumes dropped nearly 15% in the post-Labor Day pullback and rejection rates eased to just above 14%. Two things are happening at once and they point in different directions over different horizons. Near term, capacity is trickling back: truck posts rose 1.4% week over week while load posts slipped, and DAT’s 35-day forecast holds van linehaul near $2.20 into mid-October. Structurally, the fleet is still shrinking by enforcement, with truck posts down 17% year over year, and FMCSA’s decision this week to pause USDOT number deactivations during the MOTUS registration migration is a tacit admission that its own system, not just non-compliance, is removing carriers from the roster. Contract van linehaul is holding at $2.72. Shippers who locked contract rates in the spring are paying up to 20% below spot and should expect carriers to reopen those conversations before Q4 bids.

Rail and Air: Strength in the Cheaper Modes

Rail intermodal posted 299,148 units for the week ending September 5, up 18% year over year, with total carloads and intermodal up 13.8%, the strongest week of the summer by AAR’s count. Some of that is modal shift away from a $3.44 truck. Air cargo told the opposite story: Xeneta’s August spot rate of $3.13 a kilogram fell 3% month over month while still sitting 24% above last year, the third straight month of narrowing gains from May’s 41% peak, and shippers are deliberately buying short-term capacity to ride the decline. Niall van de Wouw’s line that “it remains a seller’s market” is true but weakening. Air is the one freight cost line trending the right way, and the one to keep on short contracts.

Broker Liability: The First Post-Montgomery Win

A Colorado federal judge dismissed Total Quality Logistics from a fatal-crash suit on Tuesday, finding the plaintiff alleged no facts showing TQL hired the driver or held a principal-agent relationship with the carrier. It is the first meaningful defense victory since the Supreme Court’s Montgomery decision stripped brokers of their federal preemption shield, and it suggests courts will still demand a concrete link before liability attaches. It does not reverse the trend. C.H. Robinson CFO Damon Lee told the Jefferies industrials conference on Wednesday that “the average small and medium-sized broker is going to have a very difficult time surviving in the post Montgomery, post Lipe world.” Carrier-vetting cost is becoming a fixed cost of brokerage, and the consolidation that implies will show up in your carrier base before it shows up in the headlines.

Trade Policy Watch: USMCA Is Splitting Into Two Borders

Last edition flagged that “nearshore” and “tariff-safe” had stopped being synonyms. This week the Canadian front moved past tariffs entirely. Canada’s retaliation took effect September 8 at 12:01 a.m.: duties of 15% to 50% on C$27.6 billion of U.S. goods, matching U.S. rates dollar for dollar across more than 700 product lines, with steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics at the top of the list, backed by a C$7.5 billion support package for affected Canadian workers and firms. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s framing, “that pivot will come at a cost,” was an admission, not a boast.

Washington answered on September 9 with something structurally different. Invoking Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which permits both 50% duties and outright exclusion of goods from countries found to discriminate against U.S. commerce, five proclamations will ban Canadian beer, wine and most spirits, whey and other dairy products, and motorcycles over 800cc from entry effective September 29. Separately, the 50% list widens on September 15 to roughly 70 more lines, including specialty cheeses, furniture and lamps, recreational boats, golf carts, hides and furs, specialty paper and select steel and aluminum items, while salt, cement and toilet paper come off. The compliance details are the story for importers. These duties apply regardless of USMCA qualification, they stack on top of Section 232, antidumping and countervailing duties, goods already imported but not entered before September 29 pay the 50% duty rather than facing the ban, and foreign-trade-zone admissions need privileged foreign status to lock the rate. The administration also ordered Canadian-origin products removed from GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules, which manage more than $50 billion in federal procurement, and has floated a ban on Bombardier jets. Officials told reporters the banned goods were chosen because Canada holds little U.S. market share in them. That is true of Canadian motorcycles. It is not true of the steel, aluminum and paper lines joining the 50% list on September 15.

The southern border is running the opposite direction. U.S.-Mexico trade hit a monthly record of $94.8 billion in July, up 27.5% year over year, with imports from Mexico up 33.5% and Laredo alone handling $36.95 billion. Mexico now accounts for nearly 18% of all U.S. trade, against $62.8 billion with Canada and $36.8 billion with China in the same month. Hyundai’s announcement this week that it will raise North American local sourcing from 60% to 80% of parts by 2030, with CEO José Muñoz citing the need to “mitigate regulatory exposure,” is the corporate version of the same trade data. Capital is choosing Mexico as the compliant half of USMCA. The risk in that choice is concentration: a single-border strategy is exactly what the Canadian episode just punished.

The China clock still runs behind both. Xi Jinping’s Washington visit remains scheduled for around September 24, alongside the UN General Assembly, with the November 10 truce and rare-earth pause as the substantive agenda. Expectations from analysts are low. Plan on the deadline, not the dinner.

📊 Numbers That Matter

Weekly Dashboard: Week of September 6–12, 2026

Metric	Reading	Source
August CPI	+0.4% MoM, +3.4% YoY; energy +2.1% MoM; fuel oil +52.0% YoY; core +2.4% YoY	BLS, Sept 11
Fed September 16 meeting	88–90% market odds of a 25 bp rate increase after CPI, up from ~70% going into the print	CME FedWatch via Quartz, Crowdfund Insider
August payrolls	+162,000 vs. 53,000 expected; unemployment 4.1%	BLS, Sept 4
Retail diesel (DOE weekly)	$5.967/gal, +36.8¢ WoW, above the June 2022 peak of $5.816; ULSD futures settled $4.80 (Sept 9)	DOE/EIA via FreightWaves
Drewry WCI (Sept 10)	$4,476/40ft, flat; Shanghai–LA $7,352 (+2% WoW, +8% vs. Aug 20); Shanghai–Genoa $4,216 (−3% WoW, −23% vs. late Aug); Shanghai–Rotterdam $3,997	Drewry
Global container volume (July)	Record 17.3M TEUs, +4.5% YoY; CTS price index 115, +37% YoY	Container Trades Statistics
Port of Los Angeles (August)	955,907 TEUs, flat YoY, +6% vs. 5-yr avg; June–Aug 2.9M TEUs, busiest three months on record; YTD ~7.0M (+1.5%)	Port of LA, Sept 9
NRF Global Port Tracker	Sept forecast 2.31M TEUs (+9.6% YoY); Oct 2.11M (+1.7%); Nov 2.00M (−0.9%); FY2026 25.7M (+1%)	NRF/Hackett, Sept 9
Truckload spot	DAT van linehaul $2.21/mi (+33.6% YoY), load-to-truck 11.47 vs. 6.68 yr ago; SONAR NTI $3.44/mi (+47% YoY); volumes −15% post-Labor Day; rejections ~14%	DAT, FreightWaves SONAR
Rail (week ending Sept 5)	Intermodal 299,148 units (+18% YoY); total traffic 533,545 (+13.8%)	AAR
Air cargo (August)	$3.13/kg spot, −3% MoM, +24% YoY; volume +6% YoY	Xeneta via Supply Chain Dive
Kroger Q2	Identical sales ex-fuel +0.2%; FY range cut to 0.2–0.8% from 1–2%; adj. EPS $1.09 (+5%); e-commerce +20%	Kroger, Sept 11
U.S.–Canada	Canadian counter-tariffs 15–50% on C$27.6B, 700+ lines, effective Sept 8; C$7.5B support package; U.S. Section 338 import bans (alcohol, dairy, motorcycles >800cc) effective Sept 29; ~70 lines added to 50% list Sept 15 (furniture, specialty paper, select steel/aluminum, boats, cheeses)	Canada Dept. of Finance; White House fact sheet, Sept 8; Supply Chain Dive
U.S.–Mexico trade (July)	Record $94.8B (+27.5% YoY); imports from Mexico +33.5%; Laredo $36.95B (+22%)	Census via WorldCity/FreightWaves
Holiday parcel surcharges	UPS peak residential $0.75 (from $0.60); FedEx $0.80 (from $0.65); Amazon Shipping $0.75; ~23–25% increases	Carrier notices via ValueAddedResource, Supply Chain Dive

Looking Ahead

September 15: ~70 more Canadian lines join the U.S. 50% list (furniture, specialty paper, select steel and aluminum items, boats, cheeses); second transpacific GRI lands into a thinned Golden Week schedule; Panama Canal Panamax slots fall to 23 a day
September 16: FOMC decision, with markets pricing a hike; August retail sales from the Census Bureau the same morning will show whether Kroger’s “disciplined” shopper is the national one
September 22–24: UN General Assembly week, with Xi Jinping’s Washington visit expected around September 24 and the November 10 truce as the only agenda item that moves your landed cost
September 27–28: UPS and FedEx nonstandard-package peak surcharges begin; residential surcharges follow October 25–26
September 29: U.S. import bans on Canadian dairy, alcohol and motorcycles take effect; goods imported but not entered by then pay 50% instead
October 1–7: China Golden Week; MSC and others have already blanked sailings, so expect the transpacific rate floor to be defended and Asia-Europe to keep sliding
November 10: U.S.–China tariff truce and rare-earth export-control pause expire

The Bottom Line

Three postures for the week ahead.

Treat freight as a rate-sensitive cost, not a pass-through. For the first time in this freight upcycle, the cost of moving inventory and the cost of carrying it are rising together: record diesel, spot truckload up 40% year over year, parcel surcharges up a quarter, and a Fed that looks set to hike into all of it. The reflex is to push the increase down the chain. Kroger’s quarter says the chain ends at a shopper who is already cutting basket size. Audit your fuel surcharge tables against $5.97 diesel this week, reopen parcel contracts before the September 27 surcharge window, and treat the spread between $2.72 contract and $3.44 spot as a negotiation your carriers will start if you don’t.

Read the import peak as a hedge, not a demand signal. The Port of LA’s record summer and the NRF’s 9.6% September forecast are the sound of importers buying ahead of two tariff clocks. That cargo has to be sold into a hiking cycle by a consumer who just told Kroger they are trading down. Plan reorders against sell-through and markdown cadence, not against port volumes, and expect the assortment cuts now spreading through apparel and housewares to reach your category’s long tail before Q1.

Model USMCA as two borders with two rulebooks. Canada is now a prohibited-goods and duty-stacking problem where USMCA origin buys nothing; Mexico is posting record volume and absorbing the capital that used to go north. Screen every Canadian input against the September 15 and September 29 annexes now, confirm privileged foreign status on FTZ admissions, and shift what the bill of materials allows toward Mexico-origin. Then write down, explicitly, how much single-border exposure that creates, because the Canadian episode is a demonstration of what happens when a partner you assumed was tariff-safe stops being one.

Strategic question for supply chain leaders: If the Fed raises rates on Tuesday into record diesel and a 25% jump in parcel surcharges, which of your Q4 inventory positions were built on last year’s cost of capital and last year’s cost of freight, and which of your suppliers are about to discover the same thing about you?