Werner Enterprises CEO Derek Leathers called current US trucking rates "horrible" in remarks captured by FreightWaves, warning that tariffs are layering fresh demand uncertainty onto a market that has yet to climb off its post-2022 floor.

The headline from the interview lands bluntly. Two years into the freight cycle that bottomed out after the 2021-2022 surge, pricing remains the dominant complaint across the truckload industry, and a tariff regime out of Washington has made shipper planning harder than at any point since the pandemic.

What does Werner see that others may not?

Werner is one of the bellwethers of the US truckload sector. Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, and publicly traded on Nasdaq under the ticker WERN, the company runs dedicated, refrigerated and logistics operations alongside its one-way dry van business.

Its customer roster runs across retail, consumer goods and food distribution — segments that feed directly off import flows tariff policy reshapes overnight. That mix gives Werner visibility into both spot-exposed freight and longer-term dedicated contracts, the combination that decides whether a carrier survives a downcycle intact.

Leathers' two-part warning — rates plus tariffs — captures a freight market that has grown harder to read quarter by quarter. Spot pricing has spent the better part of 18 months stuck in a band that fails to clear operating costs for many carriers, and contract renewals through 2025 have continued to grind lower rather than recover.

Why do tariffs matter so much to a truckload CEO?

That half the carriers can see coming. The tariff half is harder to hedge. Each fresh announcement of duties, pauses or exemptions sends importers racing to pull cargo forward or slamming the brakes on new orders.

Truckload operators hauling retail, home goods and apparel feel the wave twice: the surge, and the silence that follows. Smaller carriers, running thinner on capital, get pulled under between those waves.

The pressure is showing up across the industry's operating decisions. Large fleets have parked older tractors and trimmed spec'ing on new Class 8 orders. Brokers have watched their own margins compress as buy-sell spreads stay narrow. Carriers of every size have leaned into cost cuts — closed terminals, frozen hiring, slowed maintenance — to keep the bleed contained.

What would change the trajectory?

Leathers has used prior earnings calls to argue that the cycle turns when inventory positions normalize and construction activity picks back up — the two demand engines that drive general freight tonnage. Tariff predictability is his added condition this time around.

Without those two swings, the CEO's read is straightforward: rates stay punitive, shippers keep their bargaining leverage, and the carriers with the balance sheet to ride it out are the ones still standing at the next inflection.

The FreightWaves interview is the clearest signal from Werner yet that the freight recession has not released its grip as the second half of 2025 opens. For shippers and 3PLs it confirms what procurement teams already know: contract leverage remains on the buyer side, carriers will keep competing aggressively to hold lanes, and pricing relief for shippers is not coming before either inventories drain or the tariff picture clears.