For much of the past year, truck drivers have been caught between rising fuel costs, a shaky freight market and growing uncertainty about where the U.S. economy is headed. Now, one veteran trucker says a recent boost in trucking rates could already be coming to an end.
Josh, who runs the YouTube channel Enemy From Within, argues that the trucking industry is often an early warning sign of broader economic problems because freight movement reflects consumer demand, manufacturing activity and supply chain health.
“Trucking is kind of a leading economic indicator of what is going on in the world,” he said in a recent YouTube video.
Truckers Saw a Temporary Boost
According to Josh, some truck drivers recently started making more money as trucking capacity tightened following a wave of industry layoffs, bankruptcies and business closures.
He pointed to reports that more than 100,000 trucking-related jobs have disappeared over the past year and said many owner-operators and small trucking companies have also left the industry.
“As a trucker that’s still left standing after the 100,000 in a year that have lost their jobs and after the multiple trucking companies that have closed their doors, yeah, the last few left are making a little bit more money than we used to,” he said.
But Josh rejected the idea that the improvement should be credited to President Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump is hellbent on the destruction of working-class Americans in service of the billionaires that want us to basically be slaves by the time it’s all said and done,” he said.
The comments reflect Josh’s personal political views, but his concerns about the trucking market come as new data show freight transportation patterns are changing.
According to the Association of American Railroads, intermodal rail traffic increased 6% in May compared with a year earlier, reaching roughly 369,000 containers and trailers per week. The increase was the largest annual gain since March 2025.
Rail Is Becoming the Cheaper Option
One major reason is cost.
Data cited by The Wall Street Journal show the average U.S. intermodal spot rate was $1.16 per mile during the week ending June 16, compared with an average trucking spot rate of $3.05 per mile.
As fuel prices rise and trucking becomes more expensive, many shippers are increasingly willing to accept slower delivery times in exchange for lower transportation costs.
Josh believes that shift could put new pressure on trucking companies. He also sees it as another example of large corporations prioritizing profits over workers.
“And isn’t that f****** convenient?” he said. “Because that’s one of those things where obviously everything goes to the billionaires in this country, right?”
“They are trying desperately to use the railroad as much as possible,” he continued. “If they continue to look to the rail to move more freight around this country, then we are going to find ourselves in a situation where we once again have excess capacity and the rates are going to continue to fall again.”
Rail cannot completely replace trucks because freight still needs to be picked up and delivered locally. But railroads can handle much of the long-distance transportation that has traditionally gone to truckers.
For Josh, that means the recent improvement many drivers celebrated may prove short-lived.
“This boost in the pay to the American truck driver that everybody was so happy about and praised Donald Trump for looks like it’s going to be very short-lived,” he said.
IMAGE CREDIT: ”Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Image adjusted for layout.