If your freight crosses a border, 2026 has been an exhausting year. The Supreme Court struck down one tariff authority in February. Its replacement was struck down in trade court, stayed on appeal, then expired on its own clock in July and was swapped for another the same day. A fourth had sat unused on the books since 1930 until it was turned on Canada in August. The USMCA review opened on July 1 and did not go the way most people expected.

Here’s a plain-English snapshot of where cross-border trucking stands as of mid-September 2026 and what you can actually control.

A note on timing: This article was written on September 15, 2026 and reflects the rules in force that day. Trade policy has moved repeatedly this year, sometimes with only days of notice, and at least one of the measures below is still under appeal. Treat this as a snapshot rather than a standing reference, and confirm current rates with your customs broker before you quote, book or budget a shipment.

What We’ll Cover:

• What Changed on Tariffs in 2026
• What You Actually Pay Today
• Where the Freight Crosses
• How a Cross-Border Truckload Really Moves
• The Paperwork You Cannot Skip
• What the USMCA Review Actually Decided
• What the Freight Market Is Doing
• How to Protect Your Supply Chain Right Now

What Actually Changed on Tariffs in 2026?

The short version, in order:

• February 20: In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the Supreme Court held 6-3 that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs at all. That voided the reciprocal program and, importantly for anyone shipping north or south, the separate IEEPA orders that had put 35% on Canadian and 25% on Mexican non-USMCA goods. All IEEPA tariffs terminated on February 24.
• February 24: Section 122 took effect in their place, applying a 10% surcharge to most imports. Section 122 is capped at 15% and limited to 150 days, and USMCA-originating goods were exempt from it.
• May 7: The Court of International Trade invalidated the Section 122 tariffs, finding they leaned on trade-deficit figures rather than balance-of-payments methodology. Relief went only to the three plaintiffs with standing, and the Federal Circuit stayed the ruling on May 12, so everyone else kept paying. The appeal is still pending and is now effectively a fight about refunds.
• July 24: Section 122 expired on its own 150-day clock and was replaced the same day by Section 301 forced-labor tariffs. Canada and Mexico both sit in the 10% band, the lower of the two, and USMCA-qualifying goods remain exempt.
• August 22: Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, on the books for nearly a century and never used to impose tariffs until now, was invoked to put 50% duties on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods across 554 tariff lines. These apply regardless of USMCA origin status, which makes them the sharpest exposure on the northern border.
• September 8: Canada’s counter-tariffs took effect on roughly CA$27.6 billion of U.S. goods. Rates of 15%, 25% or 50% are set item by item to mirror the U.S. rate on the same good, so there is no simple category rule to work from.
• September 15: The Section 338 product list was revised and the Section 232 carve-out was removed. Section 338 duties now apply in addition to Section 232, pushing combined additional duties as high as 100% on some items, including certain steel, aluminum and vehicle categories.
• September 29: A separate Section 338 action goes further than duties. Importation of listed Canadian products is barred outright, covering packaged beer, wine, spirits, cider and beverage alcohol, certain whey and dairy concentrates, molasses, non-alcoholic beer and motorcycles over 800cc.

What Do You Actually Pay Today?

Several layers, and as of today they stack. Section 232 on steel, aluminum, copper and autos was never touched by any of the litigation and generally runs 10% to 50% with country-specific exceptions. Section 301 adds 10% on Canadian and Mexican goods that do not qualify under USMCA. Section 338 adds up to 50% on its Canadian tariff lines whether they qualify or not, and since September 15 it applies on top of Section 232 rather than instead of it, which is how you get combined additional duties as high as 100% on some steel, aluminum and vehicle items. Antidumping and countervailing orders sit on top of all of it where they apply.

The thing worth underlining: USMCA itself remains fully in force, and by mid-2025 roughly 80% of U.S. imports from both countries were entering duty-free under it, up from about 50% for Mexican goods and under 40% for Canadian goods before the tariff rounds began. Rules-of-origin compliance is the single highest-leverage lever most shippers have, and a lot of freight pays duty it doesn’t owe simply because nobody audited the certification. If you want background on the earlier rounds, see our posts on what tariff increases mean for shippers and the 90-day tariff pause.

Where Does the Freight Cross?

Laredo, mostly. Port Laredo moved $353.94 billion in trade in 2025, which put it third among all U.S. ports for the year behind New York and Los Angeles, and first among land ports by a wide margin. Through 2026 it has repeatedly taken the number one spot outright on a monthly basis. The World Trade Bridge alone handles 15,000 to 18,000 trucks a day, roughly 40% of every truck crossing on the entire U.S.-Mexico border. A bad morning there is felt in Ohio by Thursday.

After Laredo come Otay Mesa, El Paso and Pharr in the south, and Detroit-Windsor, Buffalo-Fort Erie and Blaine in the north. Which gateway your freight uses matters more than most shippers realize, because congestion, inspection rates and broker capacity vary enormously between them. Our primer on shipping lanes in trucking covers why lane choice drives cost.

How Does a Cross-Border Truckload Really Move?

Into and out of Mexico, most freight uses a three-carrier handoff. A Mexican carrier brings the trailer to the border. A short-haul transfer carrier (the drayage move) shuttles it across the bridge and through customs. A U.S. carrier picks it up on the other side for the long haul. Through-trailer service exists as an alternative, but the handoff model is still the norm, and each transfer is a place where paperwork errors surface and where visibility usually drops.

Plenty of shippers now transload at the border instead: freight is unloaded into a U.S. warehouse and reloaded onto domestic equipment. It costs more per shipment but simplifies liability and lets you consolidate. Bonded warehousing can also defer duty until the goods actually enter commerce.

Canada is simpler. A single carrier with the right authority can usually run straight through, provided the PARS or PAPS barcode clears in advance and the eManifest is filed.

What Paperwork Do You Actually Need?

• Commercial invoice and packing list, with accurate values and descriptions
• USMCA certification of origin (no prescribed form, but the required data elements must be there)
• Correct HTS classification, which is where most duty overpayment starts
• Bill of lading and, for Mexico, the Complemento Carta Porte, mandatory since 2021 and enforced without grace since 2024. Version 3.0 is the only valid one, and it must match the invoice
• Customs broker entry filing and a named importer of record
• ACE or ACI electronic manifest filed before arrival

It’s a longer list than a domestic move, but the logic is the same. See our rundown of must-have domestic freight documents for the baseline.

What Did the USMCA Review Actually Decide?

This is the part most coverage still gets wrong, because it is reported as an open question. It isn’t. At the July 1 joint review the United States declined to renew USMCA in its current form, while Mexico and Canada both backed a 16-year extension. That refusal triggered Article 34.7.4, so the agreement now goes to a mandatory joint review every year until it expires on July 1, 2036.

Two things follow. Nothing lapsed: preferential tariffs, rules of origin and dispute settlement all remain in force, and qualifying freight still crosses duty-free tomorrow morning. But the planning horizon just shortened from sixteen years to twelve months, and it resets every year. The three heads of government can still extend at any time by written confirmation, without reopening negotiations, so this is recoverable. It is simply no longer settled.

The U.S.-Canada track stalled after talks collapsed on August 21. The U.S.-Mexico track has kept moving.

What Is the Freight Market Doing?

Mixed signals, and the averages hide the story. Bureau of Transportation Statistics data for February 2026 showed total North American transborder freight down 0.7% year over year, but that single number splits into U.S.-Canada down 9.0% and U.S.-Mexico up 7.1%. Uber Freight’s first-quarter numbers put tender acceptance on Mexican freight at around 86% against a norm closer to 98%, with roughly 56,000 Mexican drivers missing from the market on visa and compliance grounds.

Against that, C.H. Robinson reported non-oil Mexican exports to the U.S. up 18% year over year across the first quarter of 2026. The honest read is that Mexican volume is holding up better than Mexican capacity is, while the northern border is the side that is genuinely shrinking. That first combination is what pushes freight onto the spot market. Our explainer on spot rates vs. contract rates is worth a look if you’re re-budgeting.

How Do You Protect Your Supply Chain Right Now?

• Audit your rules of origin: Re-certify with suppliers. This is the difference between 0% and a stacked duty bill.
• Check the Section 338 list if you import from Canada: It is the one layer USMCA qualification will not save you from. It now stacks on top of Section 232, and from September 29 some listed goods cannot be imported at all.
• Pin down who pays: Check your Incoterms. DDP vs. DAP decides who eats a tariff change mid-transit.
• Don’t single-thread the border: Have a second crossing and a second carrier identified before you need them.
• Plan on a twelve-month horizon: With annual reviews now mandatory, multi-year sourcing bets need a tariff contingency written into them.
• Build a recovery plan: Freight stops at bridges. Know who can expedite or rescue a load once it clears.

None of this is within your control. Your response to it is. The shippers weathering 2026 best are the ones who fixed their documentation, diversified their crossings and stopped assuming the rule that applied last quarter still applies this one. For more on that mindset, see handling freight partner failures.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do USMCA-Qualifying Goods Still Cross Duty-Free?

For the most part, yes. USMCA remains fully in force, and by mid-2025 roughly 80% of U.S. imports from both countries were entering duty-free under it. The exception matters though: Section 338 duties on Canadian goods apply regardless of USMCA origin, so qualification will not protect you there.

What Is Section 338 and Why Does USMCA Not Cover It?

Section 338 is a provision of the Tariff Act of 1930 that had never been used to impose tariffs until August 2026. It puts duties of up to 50% on Canadian goods across several hundred tariff lines, and unlike the other measures in play it was written without a USMCA carve-out, so origin status does not exempt you. The product list was expanded on September 15 and the earlier Section 232 carve-out was dropped, so these duties now stack on top of Section 232. A separate action bars some listed Canadian goods from import entirely from September 29.

Is USMCA Expiring?

Not now, and not automatically. The agreement runs to July 1, 2036. What changed at the July 2026 joint review is that the United States declined to renew it in its current form, which triggered mandatory annual reviews between now and then. All three governments can still extend it at any point by written confirmation, without reopening negotiations.

Can One Truck Carry My Freight All the Way From Mexico?

Usually not. Most U.S.-Mexico freight uses a three-carrier handoff: a Mexican carrier to the border, a transfer carrier across the bridge and through customs, then a U.S. carrier for the long haul. Through-trailer service exists, and many shippers transload at the border instead. Canada is different, where a single carrier can normally run straight through.

What Is the Fastest Way to Reduce My Duty Bill?

Audit your rules of origin and re-certify with your suppliers. A great deal of freight pays duty it does not owe because nobody checked the certification or the HTS classification. Getting that right is the difference between zero and a stacked bill, and it costs nothing but attention. The exception is the Section 338 list for Canadian goods, where qualification does not help and the only real lever is the classification itself.

Move Your Cross-Border Freight With PEI

Nobody in freight can tell you what the tariff schedule looks like next quarter. What we can do is make sure the transport side is not the part that fails when the paperwork side gets complicated.

At PEI we move freight the moment it clears, whether that means recovering a load that has been sitting at a bridge, running an exclusive use vehicle on the US side of the border or picking up a shipment your original carrier could not complete. If you have freight crossing and a date you cannot miss, speak to one of our team about the contingency before you need it. You can reach us directly at 888-SHIP-911.

For more on planning around disruption, read our guide to handling freight partner failures.