As the conflict in Iran has sent average diesel prices skyrocketing toward record levels, the crisis now threatens a U.S. trucking industry already grappling with new language requirements for drivers, a years-long freight recession, and razor-thin margins that leave little room to absorb yet another shock.

Over the last month, California, Arizona, Maryland, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Hawaii and Nevada have all reported new all-time records for average diesel prices. While trucking operators have been able to shield themselves somewhat by having shippers pay fuel surcharges, those surcharges are based on weekly government price averages, meaning that carriers can be stuck absorbing days' worth of higher pump prices before any adjustments kicks in.

Although larger operators are typically well-equipped to absorb those costs, any sizable, sudden price increases can have an outsized impact on small or medium-sized fleets, which don't have the same resources to bridge the gap between what they're paying at the pump and what their surcharges are recovering.

"Fuel is one of the biggest day-to-day costs for carriers, so when prices jump this fast, margins get squeezed quickly," says Jennifer Lockett, freight factoring operations manager for bank-backed invoice financing company altLINE.

Many carriers have already had to adjust their operations by tightening routes, cutting unnecessary miles, and holding off on hiring new drivers or buying new equipment, Lockett notes. Drivers and fleets are also paying more for fuel up front while waiting weeks to get paid, leaving them in financial lurch in the interim.

That's all part of a larger "financial fragility" that's inherent to the trucking industry at large, especially among smaller operators and owner-operators, says Andrei Quinn-Barabanov, supply chain industry practice lead with Moody's. As he points out, the trucking industry operates on notoriously thin margins even in good times, with fuel, insurance, equipment and labor costs consuming the vast majority of revenue before a carrier sees any profit. If one of those pieces gets thrown out of balance, the impacts can be severe and wide-reaching, as we saw firsthand during the pandemic, when thousands of small operators were forced into bankruptcy by a freight recession from which the industry has yet to fully recover.

"If you're the owner operator of a truck, it's hard for you to say, 'I'm just going to park the truck until the costs go down and prices allow me to make a good profit,'" Quinn-Barabanov posits. "You're out there competing every day."

On top of all that, the industry has struggled with driver staffing levels for years, with the U.S. trucking sector reporting an eight-year low in total employment in March 2026, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Add in the new English language proficiency requirements for drivers enacted by the Trump administration, which have removed thousands more truckers from U.S. roads, and it's becoming harder than ever to find enough people to move freight, even before factoring in the added strain of rising fuel costs.

"Rigs are expensive, operating costs are expensive, and fuel is expensive — you need more cash to get into the game than you ever did before," says John Lash, VP of product strategy with supply chain management software provider e2open.

All of this has made the timing of the Strait of Hormuz crisis particularly difficult for an industry that's already been facing an uphill battle to stay solvent. And when the trucking sector struggles, the impacts can be seen everywhere. Trucks at some point move virtually every product shipped into and out of the U.S., and when operators are no longer able to absorb rising costs, increases get passed on to shippers, and then eventually consumers, affecting everything from food to retail.

According to Bloomberg, the last time diesel prices were this high was in May of 2022, when the annual increase in cost to transport and warehouse goods peaked at 22%. In that same month, consumer goods prices rose by more than 13% year-over-year, indicating that a similar bump may be on the horizon in the days and weeks to come. To wit, March BLS data scheduled to be released on April 10 is expected to show the largest annual increase in consumer prices since 2024.

An end to the war in Iran isn't likely to provide much relief either, warns Quinn-Barabanov. Even with the tenuous ceasefire announced on April 7 — which appeared to quickly deteriorate in a matter of hours — diesel prices are likely to remain high for the rest of the year, given that the damage has already been done to global markets.

Oil markets won't simply snap back to normal the moment the Strait of Hormuz fully reopens, he explains. Rather, recovery will be uneven and slow — Middle East refineries that were damaged or taken offline will need time to come back online; tankers that were rerouted around Africa's Cape of Good Hope are still mid-voyage; and prices at the pump are subject to the phenomenon known as "rockets and feathers," where rates will shoot up quickly when crude rises, but fall more slowly on the way back down.

"The spike might be temporary, but it's hard to be optimistic about diesel prices returning to their previous levels," Quinn-Barabanov says.