Trucking & Rail Oct 11, 2026 · 8 min read

Russian diesel waiver challenged as US trucking tightens

A Russian diesel waiver will not fix US truck costs. On Sunday 11 October, Republican Senator Thom Tillis said Trump’s Russian diesel deal may break the law, per Reuters via gCaptain. The US Treasury licence pausing sanctions on Russian diesel runs to April 2027, AP reports. Our view: it won’t bring truck costs down quickly. EIA put US diesel at $6.199 a gallon on 5 October, $2.488 above a year ago. The September Logistics Managers’ Index scored transport capacity at 34.4, deep in contraction. J.B. Hunt reports on 15 October. Our call: US diesel stays above $5.50 through end-November, and fuel surcharges stay high.

Russian diesel won’t fix America’s truck shortage, and J.B. Hunt is about to show why
On Sunday 11 October, Republican Senator Thom Tillis said President Trump’s diesel deal with Russia may break US law. “I do believe there’s a legitimate case for saying the president’s not following the law,” Tillis said, according to Reuters, as published by gCaptain. Trump announced the deal on Friday 9 October. It temporarily lifts US sanctions on Russian diesel. According to AP, a Treasury licence means US sanctions won’t apply until April 2027 to Russian diesel loaded onto tankers as of that Friday. Censor.net reported the expiry date as 7 April 2027.
Our view is simple. This is a political answer to a price that voters can see. It does little for the problem US trucking actually has, which is a shortage of trucks and drivers. Forwarders should price US inland legs as if the waiver changes nothing for at least the rest of this year.

What the deal says

The licence is what the US sanctions office (OFAC, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control) calls a “general licence”. It is a blanket permission that lets otherwise banned trades go ahead without each company applying. Censor.net described it as a “temporary general license authorizing supplies of Russian diesel fuel to the global market.” The page did not give a licence number.
The volumes are large on paper. Trump’s post, as reported by AP, said Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel. Then 500,000 tons in November, 1 million tons “immediately thereafter” and 3 million tons “within a short period of time”. If every tranche arrives, that is about 4.8 million tons. At a standard conversion of about 7.45 barrels a tonne, that is roughly 36 million barrels. That figure is our own arithmetic, not an official number.
Note the destination. The US has not imported Russian oil or gas since 2022, AP said. The licence allows supply “to the global market”. So any price relief for US truckers would come indirectly, through more diesel in the world market, not from Russian barrels in US tanks.
There are also reasons to doubt the supply. AP reported that Russia has banned diesel exports since July. It also cited the International Energy Agency (IEA) as saying Russian diesel output has fallen about 30%. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Russia is “immediately starting to lift restrictions on diesel exports ahead of schedule,” per AP. That is a promise, not a cargo.

Why the waiver may not last

The legal challenge came within two days. Tillis, a retiring senator from North Carolina, was not alone. Reuters reported via gCaptain that Republican Representative Don Bacon called the deal morally wrong. Former Vice President Mike Pence called it a “betrayal” of the late Senator Lindsey Graham’s legacy. Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 last month, gCaptain reported.
The administration is not backing down. “We’re going to do it with all the legal authorities we have,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News, according to the same report. Senate Republican number two John Barrasso told CBS: “The president is balancing and has to make tough decisions.”
Democrats are angrier still. AP quoted Senators Chuck Schumer, Jeanne Shaheen and Elizabeth Warren: “Enough is enough.” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a weak decision, unfortunately, a weak decision by strong partners”.
The analysts AP spoke to were not convinced it would cut prices. “What does this do to prices? I think probably not much,” said Clayton Seigle of CSIS. Michael Lynch of the Energy Policy Research Foundation said: “It’s kind of shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.”
We agree with them. A licence that is legally disputed and politically toxic is a weak signal for refiners and traders to plan around. Russia’s own supply also has to recover first.

Diesel is already falling, but from a very high level

The waiver lands as US diesel is already easing. EIA, the US Energy Information Administration, put the average US on-highway diesel price at $6.529 a gallon on 21 September. It was $6.382 on 28 September and $6.199 on 5 October. That last figure was $0.183 lower on the week, but still $2.488 above a year earlier. The next EIA release is on Wednesday 14 October.
AAA’s national average was $6.28 a gallon, AP reported on 9 October. That followed a record $6.52 on 22 September.
The drop began before the Russia deal. The September Logistics Managers’ Index (LMI) report noted that in early October the G-7 nations agreed not to pursue export bans “and to release 100 million barrels of diesel from strategic reserves over the next few weeks”. That release is bigger than every promised Russian tranche combined, on our arithmetic. It also comes from allies, without a sanctions fight.
Regional gaps matter for forwarders quoting port drayage. EIA’s 5 October data had California at $8.082 a gallon, $3.111 up on the year. The Gulf Coast was at $5.819 and the East Coast at $5.951. A truck fuelling in California is paying over $2 a gallon more than one on the Gulf Coast.

The real squeeze is trucks and drivers

The LMI is a monthly survey of logistics managers. A reading above 50 means growth and below 50 means contraction. The September index was 70.2, up 3.6 points. Transportation prices scored 92.7, up 2.7. “The Transportation Capacity Index dropped 5.6 points to 34.4 percent in September 2026,” the report said.
That gap between prices at 92.7 and capacity at 34.4 is the story. Demand for trucking is rising faster than the supply of it. Cheaper fuel does not create drivers.
The spot market tells the same story. DAT, which runs a large US load board, said flatbed spot linehaul rates averaged $2.65 a mile in the week to early October, excluding fuel. (“Linehaul” means the trucking rate without fuel surcharge.) That was up 2.2% on the week and 28.2% on the year. “Flatbed stayed the tightest board by level last week, its load-to-truck ratio advancing to 44.13 from 41.38,” DAT’s Dean Croke wrote. The load-to-truck ratio counts posted loads for each available truck. A year earlier it was 30.02.

What J.B. Hunt will tell us on Thursday

J.B. Hunt, one of the largest US trucking and intermodal companies, reports third-quarter results after the market closes on Thursday 15 October. Intermodal means containers moved by rail with trucks at each end.
The company has already warned. In mid-September it said earnings per share could fall 5% to 10% from the second quarter. Talk Business & Politics reported Stephens analysts’ view that this implied $1.72 to $1.81 a share, against $1.91 in the second quarter. The causes were $25 million in driver-related costs and more than $10 million from fuel. Shares closed down 13.3% at $236.73 that day.
FreightWaves reported on 16 September that management called the cost inflation “more cyclical than structural”. On capacity, FreightWaves reported the view that it is “not letting up at all, if anything it’s probably getting worse”. FreightWaves also said fuel surcharges lag by one week. It reported intermodal contract pricing typically lags truckload pricing by two quarters. SONAR data, it said, showed intermodal 32% cheaper than truck, against a typical discount of 10% to 15% in the East and about 25% in the West.
As of 9 October, the consensus of 18 analysts was $1.81 a share on revenue of $3.59 billion, up 17.52% from $3.05 billion, according to Talk Business & Politics. The stock traded at $226.36 on 8 October. Stephens kept its overweight rating and cut its price target by $40 to $330. The analysts said a “challenging driver environment” makes for a stronger pipeline in dedicated contract trucking.
Our read: the headline earnings number matters less than what J.B. Hunt says about intermodal pricing. FreightWaves reported that the intermodal bid season starts in October, with about 10% of contracts renewing in the fourth quarter. A 32% discount to truck leaves a lot of room to raise rates.

What this means for forwarders

First, keep fuel surcharges in quotes, and check the index date behind them. Diesel is still about $2.49 a gallon above last year on EIA data. A waiver that may be reversed is no reason to cut them.
Second, expect drayage and inland rates to stay firm even if fuel eases. Capacity is the binding problem. California drayage carries the highest fuel cost in the country.
Third, rail is cheaper than truck by an unusually wide margin, but that margin is likely to narrow. Shippers moving containers inland from the West Coast should lock intermodal rates where they can, before the fourth-quarter bids reprice them.
Fourth, watch the compliance side. The licence covers Russian diesel, not every Russian trade. Forwarders handling energy cargo or chartering product tankers should read the OFAC text, not the headlines. The licence could be narrowed or withdrawn if the legal challenge gains ground.

Our call

We expect EIA’s US on-highway diesel average to stay above $5.50 a gallon on every weekly release through end-November. That is still more than $1.75 above last year’s level. We expect the Russian licence to still be in force on 30 November, because the White House will not drop it before the 3 November midterms. But it will not move pump prices in any way you can measure. On 15 October, we expect J.B. Hunt to report earnings per share inside the $1.72 to $1.81 range Stephens analysts drew from its guidance. We expect it to say intermodal contract rates will rise in the fourth-quarter bid season. Forwarders should budget for US inland costs to be higher in Q1 2027 than in Q3 2026.

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