The Trump Tariffs Strike Back

The Trump administration’s latest tariffs signal that trade uncertainty is far from over. Learn what has changed, what hasn’t, and how supply chain leaders should respond.

Jul 27, 2026

I was out of the office last Friday attending the ⁠2006 USATF Outdoor National Championships with my oldest son, so I wasn’t able to write my regular “Above the Fold” post — my weekly roundup of supply chain and logistics news.

But I want to highlight two developments from last week because they relate to the two most consequential trends shaping the industry today: tariffs and AI.

The Trump Tariffs Strike Back

With apologies to George Lucas, allow me to make a Star Wars analogy here.

If the “Trade Wars” launched by Trump at the start of his second term were the first installment of a movie trilogy, ending with the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year invalidating the administration’s tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), then the second installment began last week with The Trump Tariffs Strike Back.

As Gavin Bade reported in The Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration is imposing tariffs “ranging from 10% to 12.5% on its major trading partners as part of a new set of duties that the Trump administration says are designed to combat forced labor.” Here are additional details from the article:

Would You Put Your Freight on a Driverless Truck?

Driverless trucks have been “coming soon” for more than a decade. But recent developments suggest the industry may finally be approaching a new phase. This month, for example, PepsiCo disclosed that it is operating 35 driverless trucks on public roads in Arizona as part of its live supply chain operations.

Back in August 2022, we asked Indago members about testing driverless trucks. At the time, most respondents were not testing the technology. It’s now four years later. Has shipper sentiment changed? Are companies more willing to test or use driverless truck capacity, and what barriers remain to broader adoption?

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