The domino effects are just starting to hit. Plus: FedEx dethroned UPS, Mexico truck production plunges, another $26M AI supply chain raise, and more.
Freight margins are razor-thin. The brokerages surviving it built nearshore teams that actually work.
Flatbed rejections hit a record 48.7%, broker numbers stop falling, and diesel jumps 30 cents overnight.
Here is another round-up of the most engaging and talked-about freight content from around the web and from us.
FreightCaviar Weekly Recap. From prestigious trucking companies shutting down, to the current CDL purge, here are this week’s most talked-about freight stories.
A post on r/FreightBrokers, a broker shared what amounted to a brutal week, a situation many in today’s market can relate to. Volatility is the norm right now, not the exception.
A few pieces of advice to weather the storm:
• Work niche lanes where competition is thinner and consistency is easier to build.
• Develop long-term carrier and shipper relationships rather than chasing one-off opportunities. Reliable partners can steady your book when the market swings.
• Focus on rapport and repeat touchpoints. Even small wins can grow into bigger loads once trust develops.
• Stay patient. The market is uneven and will likely remain that way — surviving the downturn positions you to benefit when conditions improve.
Tough weeks happen, but strategic focus and steady relationship-building are what carry brokers through this turbulent cycle.
The fastest-growing brokerages aren’t adding overhead—they’re adding AI with Augie.
Augie is the AI teammate that automates freight’s daily chaos—building, booking, tracking, collecting, repeating—and learns from every load. Augie connects across every workflow and system so your team can focus on growth, not grind.
Built for logistics by Augment, Augie helps ambitious brokerages move faster, scale smarter, and become harder to catch.
A 70-year legacy came to an end as James R. Smith Trucking, a 50-truck family fleet in Alabama, shut down operations after severe financial strain. The closure, marked by aging equipment, rising costs, and a freight market oversaturated with capacity, reflects current wave of trucking failures hitting long-established carriers.
Craig Fuller, CEO at FreightWaves
This follows our report last week on 10 Roads Express, one of USPS’s largest haulers with more than 2,400 power units and 2,600 drivers, will shut down by January 30, 2026 after a 70% revenue drop tied to USPS shifting freight to brokers and in-house operations.
Together, these closures reflect a market where even large, established carriers are struggling to survive.
Adriana Pulley
FreightCaviar’s feature this week looks at why 2026 may be one of the most unpredictable import years in recent memory. President Trump signaled he may let USMCA expire or push for a full renegotiation, a remark that immediately rattled sectors tied to the $1.7 trillion North American trade corridor. Any disruption to USMCA would hit freight quickly through new tariffs, shifting Mexico–U.S. volumes, and potential pull-forward surges.
Global pressures add to the uncertainty. A reset of Suez Canal routing could create fresh congestion and timing swings as carriers unwind a year of detours around Africa, while U.S.–China trade talks offer optimism without clarity. The result: volatility across ports, cross-border flows, and inland trucking networks.
If you move imports, 2026 won’t be a steady year, and preparing now will matter.
Read the full breakdown here.
Solvera Global Logistics managed +67% invoice growth seamlessly with Epay without having to add back-office headcount - and you could too.
Epay Manager’s latest case study highlights the impressive growth of Solvera Global Logistics throughout a difficult freight market as they onboarded to the Epay platform.
Notable KPI improvements:
A LinkedIn post from Matthew Leffler, The Armchair Attorney, offered a concise but impactful rundown of key regulatory shifts reshaping trucking. FMCSA has reinstated strict English Language Proficiency enforcement, placing non-compliant drivers out of service during roadside checks. The agency also moved to tighten non-domiciled CDL issuance after widespread state-level failures, though a federal court has temporarily paused enforcement.
Leffler highlighted FMCSA’s aggressive purge of fraudulent training schools, with more than 3,000 providers removed amid investigations into invalid CDLs, as well as stepped-up oversight of ELDs, with a record number of devices revoked this year. His roundup underscores a regulatory climate that is tightening across all fronts: licensing, training, and compliance, with more changes expected into 2026.
MEME OF THE WEEK
🎣 THE FREIGHT CAVIAR CORNER
The domino effects are just starting to hit. Plus: FedEx dethroned UPS, Mexico truck production plunges, another $26M AI supply chain raise, and more.
Flatbed rejections hit a record 48.7%, broker numbers stop falling, and diesel jumps 30 cents overnight.
Congress is moving to put driverless 80,000-lb trucks on public roads. Plus: 13,000 California CDLs get cancelled, diesel hits a 32-year record, Florida wants $50K to get your truck back, and more.
Ryan Schreiber breaks down everything about strategy, relationships, mindset, and AI in logistics.
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