IN Brief:
- US business logistics costs reached $2.4tn in 2025, equivalent to 7.8% of GDP.
- The latest State of Logistics report identifies trade realignment, labour constraints, energy volatility, and financial pressure as structural forces.
- AI adoption is moving into practical use cases, but implementation remains uneven across the market.
The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals has released the latest State of Logistics report, showing US business logistics costs at $2.4tn in 2025, equal to 7.8% of GDP.
The report, authored by Kearney and presented by Penske Logistics, frames volatility as a continuing feature of the US operating environment rather than a temporary disruption. Although logistics costs fell from the previous year’s level, the report identifies structural pressure across global growth, financial conditions, trade flows, labour, productivity, and energy pricing.
The market has cooled from pandemic-era extremes without returning to stability. Freight capacity, inventory positioning, warehouse utilisation, and carrier pricing remain exposed to trade policy shifts, geopolitical disruption, inflation, and uneven demand. The headline cost reduction sits beside an operating reality in which logistics may be less expensive than at its peak but remains difficult to plan.
Trade realignment is one of the strongest themes. US companies are reassessing sourcing, import timing, and regional supply networks as tariffs, political risk, and manufacturing diversification reshape freight flows. Some businesses are pulling cargo forward to avoid policy changes, while others are adjusting supplier bases to reduce exposure to single-country risk.
Those behaviours are already visible in the market, with importers advancing shipments before tariff exposure changes and trade execution being reworked around duties, customs, and routing. The effect carries through ocean freight, drayage, warehouse intake, inland transport, and inventory finance.
Labour and productivity constraints remain central. Logistics operators are still managing driver availability, warehouse labour costs, skills shortages, and the need to improve asset utilisation. Automation and digital investment are part of the response, but adoption remains uneven as companies look for technology that produces measurable returns rather than broad transformation claims.
AI is moving into more practical use cases. The report highlights applications that interpret data, predict outcomes, recommend actions, and execute defined tasks. Supply chain AI is now being judged on operational value: fewer exceptions, better forecasting, improved routing, stronger asset productivity, and more resilient planning.
Implementation remains hard. AI tools depend on data quality, process discipline, and organisational readiness. Transport, warehouse, finance, and procurement systems need to align before automated recommendations can be trusted at scale. Without that foundation, technology can add another layer of complexity to networks already under pressure.
Energy volatility adds further strain. Fuel prices affect transport directly, but energy costs also influence warehousing, cold storage, manufacturing, and supplier pricing. Networks built on tight service windows and thin margins can see annual freight and distribution budgets altered quickly by energy swings.
Resilience is now part of cost management. Companies are no longer judging logistics performance only by rate reduction or inventory minimisation. Optionality, visibility, asset productivity, and the ability to absorb disruption without losing service are becoming part of how logistics value is measured.
Higher interest rates and tighter capital conditions are forcing harder decisions about automation, network expansion, inventory buffers, and supplier diversification. The strongest logistics strategies will be those that improve flexibility without simply adding cost. The US market has moved into a phase where volatility is managed rather than avoided, and advantage will sit with networks that can adjust before disruption becomes a service failure.
