The November 1 Tariffs: How New Tariff Costs Will Hit Carriers and Brokers

Remember when your biggest worry was finding parking at a truck stop? Yeah, those were the days.

Come November 1, tariff costs are about to make every equipment decision a lot more difficult, and that’s before you realize the sick joke: These tariff costs hit the same truck three times — once as raw steel, again as parts crossing borders, and finally as a finished rig sitting on the dealer’s lot.

Nobody’s immune, from carriers limping along with 500,000-mile workhorses to brokers keeping their networks running on hope and baling wire. There’s nowhere to hide, and no, we can’t fix the policy or what’s inevitable. But we can break down the details, how it could impact you, and how you can prepare.

The Details and Context Behind the 25% November 1 Tariffs

Before you can calculate what tariff costs will do to your bottom line, you need to understand what you’re dealing with. The policy sounds simple on paper — 25% on imported trucks — but the execution is messier and more nuanced.

The Timeline and How We Got Here: Section 232 tariffs got announced on September 25 and postponed to November 1. They slap 25% on medium- and heavy-duty trucks from anywhere, regardless of origin. This comes after steel and aluminum tariffs doubled to 50% and hundreds of derivative products like trailers, cranes, and machinery joined the list.
Import Dependency Runs Deep: Mexico shipped roughly 340,000 medium- and heavy-duty trucks to the U.S. in 2024 — triple the 2019 numbers. Canada and Mexico together supply nearly half of all Class 8 trucks and over a quarter of Class 4-7 units. Domestic manufacturing can’t replace that volume, so most new equipment purchases will carry tariff costs.
USMCA Exemptions Sound Good Until They Don’t: Trucks with final assembly in the U.S. dodge tariffs if 85% of the vehicle content meets USMCA compliance. Sounds reasonable, except Section 232 tariffs can override trade agreements. Many North American-built trucks with imported components still get hit with the complete 25%.
The Double-Tax Problem: Manufacturers already paid tariffs on steel, aluminum, and components before building the truck. Now the finished truck gets taxed again. You’re paying twice on the same metal.
Small and Midsize Operators Absorb the Worst: Half of all heavy trucks come from imports, and 28% of heavy-vehicle parts ship from Mexico. Large fleets negotiate volume discounts and spread costs across hundreds of units. But small and midsize carriers, which lack the purchasing power of large fleets, can’t play that game.

Level 1 Tariff Costs: Raw Materials Hit Your Fleet First

Steel, aluminum, and copper form the backbone of every truck on your lot. When tariffs on these metals doubled to 50%, your next fleet purchase already got a whole lot pricier.

Here’s the problem: The U.S. imports a quarter of its steel and half its aluminum, so manufacturers have zero wiggle room. Previous tariffs already pushed raw material costs up 9-12% and cold-rolled steel sheets up 9.4%.

Tires hurt even worse. We import 63% of our tires, which now face tariffs up to 46%. Commercial truck tires already carry a 10% duty, but the steel inside them gets hit with 95% tariffs. Yokohama and Sumitomo have raised prices by 10%, and they won’t be the last.

Every raw material price spike flows downstream. Trailer orders cost more. Brake drums cost more. Maintenance parts cost more. Brokers watch equipment leasing rates climb while carriers delay purchases they can’t afford. The math gets worse at every level.

Level 2 Tariff Costs: Parts and Components Double the Pain

Those expensive raw materials? Wait until they become the parts that keep your trucks on the road.

The 25% automotive tariff that kicked in last April targets everything under your hood — engines, transmissions, powertrain components, and electrical systems. But here’s where it gets uglier: Parts crossing borders get taxed at every stop. A U.S.-built engine ships to Mexico for installation, then rides back inside a finished truck. Come November 1, you’re paying tariffs twice on that same engine.

Paccar and Ford sounded the alarm months ago. We can’t produce enough transmissions, frame rails, axles, or sensors domestically. Kenworth and Peterbilt build 98% of their Class 8 trucks here, but those trucks need imported components to roll off the line. Each tariff adds thousands to your purchase price.

Your repair costs were already painful at 20.2 cents per mile in 2023. But OEM parts climbed another 2.1% in early 2025, and 44% of collision parts come from overseas. That 25% tariff turns routine maintenance into budget-breaking nightmares while your trucks sit waiting for parts.

Level 3 Tariff Costs: Finished Truck Prices Deliver the Final Blow

All those tariff costs pile up into one brutal reality: the sticker price on your next truck.

Raw materials got taxed. Parts got taxed crossing borders. Now finished trucks face another 25% tariff on November 1, stacked on top of the 12% federal excise tax you’re already paying. Comvoy calculates that tariff-affected trucks will hit $224,000. U.S.-assembled rigs jump $3,000 per unit from imported parts alone, while fully imported trucks balloon by $10,000.

S&P Global sees darker days ahead. New truck prices could spike 9% while demand crashes 17% if tariffs stick through year-end. Class 8 builds already cost 24% more thanks to earlier rounds.

Those projections spell trouble come November 1. Fleets will likely panic-buy before the tariffs take effect, creating artificial demand followed by a purchasing freeze. That freeze would push used truck values through the roof, since extending replacement cycles beats paying triple-taxed prices. Carriers counting on secondhand equipment would then get squeezed from scarce supply and skyrocketing costs, hitting already-thin margins, while brokers supplying drop equipment would face the same nightmare.

The Bonus: Maintenance Costs and the Ripple Effect of Older Equipment

Those crushing truck prices leave carriers with one choice: Run their old equipment into the ground. But here’s the catch: Older trucks not only break down more often, but cost more to maintain.

Carriers already fork over $2.260 per mile to keep trucks rolling. Take away fuel costs, and they’re still burning $1.779 per mile, a record high that keeps climbing. Truck payments also shot up 8.3% last year, while maintenance hit over 20 cents per mile, and that number came BEFORE tariffs turned parts into gold.

Each year that carriers postpone buying new trucks, their repair bills explode. Heavy-duty rigs rack up 100,000 to 120,000 miles annually. When tariffs bump maintenance costs up even 5 cents per mile, carriers lose another $5,000 to $6,000 per truck yearly.

Brokers get caught in the wreckage too. Aging fleets mean loads get rejected, deliveries miss windows, and shippers start shopping for reliability elsewhere. Everyone watches their margins evaporate while broken-down trucks destroy the service levels customers demand.

Strategies and Solutions for Carriers and Brokers

Tariff costs are crushing your margins, maintenance nightmares are killing your uptime, and everyone wants answers. So it’s time to get creative to turn these challenges into competitive advantages.

Lock in Pre-Tariff Prices Now: Place your 2026 equipment orders today before the November 1 tariff bomb drops. Imported trucks face $10,000 price jumps, so securing current prices saves serious cash. Just don’t go crazy and tie up all your capital chasing discounts.
Make Your Old Trucks Last Longer: Pour money into preventive maintenance now to avoid catastrophic repairs later. Telematics and predictive analytics help you catch problems before they strand loads. When brake drums and tires cost a fortune, squeezing extra miles from components becomes pure profit.
Stop Eating Tariff Costs Alone: Renegotiate every contract you have. Show shippers the math on tariff impacts and push for rate increases or surcharges. Carriers and brokers that stay silent about rising costs will watch their margins disappear.
Build Strategic Partnerships: Find U.S. suppliers for critical parts before everyone else catches on. Partner with brokers that understand equipment costs and carriers that maintain their fleets. The companies that survive will be the ones that stop competing and start collaborating.
Let EKA Solutions Handle the Heavy Lifting: Our Omni-TMS™ and freight tech ecosystem at EKA Solutions can help you stay ahead of the tariff chaos. Dynamic load matching kills empty miles, predictive pricing protects your margins, and automated compliance keeps you legal. Brokers use EKA to orchestrate load flow and monitor carrier performance while carriers maximize truck utilization.

Don’t Let Tariffs Drive You Off the Road

Raw materials get taxed, parts get taxed crossing borders, finished trucks get taxed again, and your maintenance costs explode while you nurse ancient equipment through another season. You could panic-buy trucks before November, watch your cash evaporate, and pray the market recovers. Or you could realize that everyone else faces the same tariff costs, and the operators that adapt fastest will eat their competitors’ lunch when the dust settles.

At EKA Solutions, we built our Omni-TMS platform because we knew days like these would come. When tariffs make your equipment costs spike overnight, our Dynamic Load Rating captures those changes and flows them through every quote and invoice, so you actually get paid for the real costs you’re facing. Our Action-Ready Intelligence shows you which lanes still make money when everything gets expensive. We connect your entire partner ecosystem — DAT, Samsara, TriumphPay, all of it — so you’re not wasting time jumping between systems while your margins burn. And when cash gets tight from those massive equipment payments, our Quick-Pay and embedded financing options keep money moving.