Nova Safo

The trucking industry is in a turnaround after three years or so of excess capacity that depressed pricing power.

Noel Perry is chief economist for truckstop.com.

He says he's seen prices rising as much as 20%.

It's not a COVID era level spike, but still significant.

Meaning there are fewer drivers.

The Trump administration's policies are the cause, he says, tightening requirements that immigrant truck drivers be fluent in English.

and as of February, barring all but a few types of visa holders.

Satish Jindal, president of logistics firm ShipMatrix, is seeing the effects as well.

But the Trump administration's limits are expansive, far beyond what's necessary for safety, says Michael Belzer, emeritus professor in transportation economics at Wayne State.

He points to the limits on DACA recipients.

Belzer says those drivers should remain because such a large chunk of the labor pool would be difficult to replace.

I'm Novosafo for Marketplace.

Yeah, well, the president said, as he has before, that countries which directly get their oil from the Gulf region, we don't, should be securing the passage, not the United States.

He also said this.

Now, he's talking about Iran there.

And what the president didn't address is that oil prices are set in a global market, as we know now.

So we're affected here as well when there are supply shocks.

Also, Iran has been allowing tankers it wants to allow through the Strait, a few of them, including its own.

So without further intervention, the question is, does that become the new normal with that passageway?

That certainly seems to be the consensus takeaway.