Shifts in Supply Chain Shape Trucking Business Environment
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The trucking industry continues to grapple with supply chain uncertainty as tariffs, port delays and cautious retailers shape the business environment in 2025, according to findings from Wells Fargo.
The 2025 Wells Fargo Supply Chain Report confirmed a prevailing belief that businesses were proactive in importing freight to the U.S. in advance of tariffs taking effect earlier this year.
Specifically, Wells Fargo saw a big jump in financing from suppliers in China and the Asia-Pacific region ahead of Trump’s so-called Liberation Day April 2 tariff deadline.
'Bulk of the Supply is Domestic'
“We are seeing the use of this up 10% to 15% over the last 90 days versus the exact same period last year,” Jeremy Jansen, head of global originations at Wells Fargo Supply Chain Finance, said during a call the company hosted to coincide with the report’s release. “The majority of that growth is coming out of the auto parts sector — auto parts suppliers selling to auto parts retailers. At this time, the bulk of the supply is domestic. It is not overseas goods coming into the retailers.”
John Crum, Wells Fargo’s head of specialty equipment finance and leasing, noted that tariff-fueled volatility compelled some companies to alter their planning habits.
“Our customers have the trucks and trailers that are moving all the stuff we’re talking about,” he said. “The key thing for us is really the disruption and the changing patterns. We note the changing effects of things coming from the East Coast to the West Coast, and how the volatility of some of that is impacting our customers. Things were more heavily weighted on the East Coast in May than they were on the West Coast, or at least it was at parity.”
He also has seen them deploy lessons about flexibility learned during the pandemic.
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“The takeaway then from us, from the transportation side, is just the overall complexity of the global supply chain,” Crum said. “What we showed throughout this is how an impact of one part works its way all the way through the businesses who handle the goods.”
Wells Fargo notes import financing activity has slowed since April
“We’ve seen certainly some softness out of Canada and Mexico,” Jansen said. “I would say subtly softer year over year, over the last 90 days. And then China. China has been very flat over the last 90 days in terms of the invoices that we’re financing for the products that are making their way to the U.S.”
Resilient Consumption
Despite the uncertainty, consumption has remained resilient. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported that retail and food services sales increased 3.9% year over year to $726.3 billion in July. That also represented a 0.5% sequential increase. Retail trade, non-store retailers and food services sales were all up from the previous year.
“We just have this dynamic period of time, the first half of this year … where you have some retailers who were able to — because their supply chain was nimble enough — bring inventory in and front-load inventory as much as possible so that they could get ahead of potential tariff impacts,” said Adam Davis, managing director at Wells Fargo Retail Finance. “You had others that just hit the pause button.”
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