Total NAFTA freight value highest since October

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports that in May trucks moved 63% of NAFTA freight – with trains, planes, ships and pipelines picking up the rest. Only one of five modes experienced a yearly decrease.

The value of freight hauled across the borders increased by 5% compared with April, when freight decreased by 2.5% from the previous month. May marks the largest total freight value since last October.

Compared to May 2018, freight was up 2.4% after a 1.8% increase in April and a 1.4% increase in March. December’s decrease broke a 25-month streak of year-to-year increases. The last year-to-year decrease before that occurred in October 2016.

In 2018, NAFTA freight increased by more than 7% compared to the previous year, with 63% of that freight carried by trucks. May’s increase puts NAFTA at a 1% increase for the year so far.

Trucks carried nearly $69 billion of the nearly $110 billion of imports and exports in May.

Year-to-year, Canada truck freight decreased by 1.8%, whereas Mexico freight rose by more than 4%. Top truck commodities were computers and parts, motor vehicles and parts, electrical machinery, plastics, and measuring/testing instruments.

Freight totaled $109.796 billion, up more than $5 billion from the previous month and an increase of more than $2.5 billion from May 2018. October was the last month NAFTA reached a total value this high at $110.796 billion.

Pipeline freight accounted for the largest increase at 11.6% after an increase of 12.8% in April. Rail had the second highest increase at 6.2%, followed by vessel freight with a 3.2% increase. Air freight experienced the only yearly decrease at 2.7%. March was the only other month air freight decreased, with 4% less cross-border freight compared to the previous year.

Nearly 55% of U.S.-Canada freight was moved by trucks, followed by rail at 16%. Of the nearly $55 billion of freight moving in and out of Mexico, trucks carried nearly 71% of the loads.