Record diesel prices are taking their toll on trucking companies and farmers, whose hardships will be passed on to American consumers.
Transportation Company Bankruptcies
“At least 16 trucking, delivery and transportation companies entered bankruptcy proceedings between late August and Sept. 21,” U.S. freight and logistics news company FreightWaves recently reported. “The filings come as trucking companies continue navigating a freight environment marked by rising diesel fuel prices and other elevated operating costs.”
FreightWaves reported Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings by the following trucking companies: Globemaster Incorporated, Xoco Transport, Jett Transport & Materials, CLJ Transporting, Mill Creek Logistics-Illinois, RP Hay Hauling, Truckload LLC and Pacer Transport.
Xoco Transport, a Texas-based carrier, has more than 40 tractors, 65 drivers, and 70 trailers. “Globemaster operates 51 power units and reported approximately 3.3 million annual miles in its most recent regulatory filings,” FreightWaves reported. CLJ Transporting is an Amazon partner with 18 trucks and 30 drivers.
The bankruptcy filings come with job losses. “The broader freight sector has also seen a wave of layoffs amid the fuel surge, with FreightWaves reporting close to 2,000 layoffs across delivery firms, manufacturers, and packaging companies over the past few weeks,” Newsweek reported.
High Diesel Prices Trickle Down
Harvard economist Willy C. Shih reiterated to Newsweek the spike in diesel prices as a major reason for what’s happening. He said it now costs about $3,000 per truck to transport goods across the country since diesel hit $6.50 per gallon. In September 2025, the average cost of diesel was $3.74 per gallon.
Moreover, those additional costs are hurting farmers and will raise prices for virtually everything the American consumer buys. Noted Shih:
If you think that isn’t going to get passed on to consumers, think again, because nobody else along the chain can afford to eat that increase in costs. These high diesel costs also come at harvest time, and farm machinery all rely on diesel. Farmers were already struggling, and this just piles more troubles upon that crucial sector to the American economy.
Social media is rampant with videos of people complaining about the price of diesel.
One truck owner begged President Donald Trump to end the war against Iran, saying that he can’t afford to run his trucking company anymore. He says:
I can’t keep hitting the customers. The truck makes a grand a day. You’re burning $300 a day in fuel — half a tank depending on where you’re going — that’s a short haul. You’re paying your driver $30, $35 an hour. You got taxes, you got registration, you got IFTA [fuel tax] fees … you got all this stuff. That truck makes me no money! Tires have gone through the roof because of the fuel.
In the video, the man can’t make up his mind if it was a good idea to start a war with Iran or not. At first, he says he understands that Iran can’t have a nuke. But later in the video, he says, “Sometimes I think maybe it was better to let them have a nuke.” This is reminiscent of a popular social-media meme that says, “I just filled my gas tank. I’m okay with Iran having a nuke.”
Farmers Hit Hard
As for farmers, they’re getting hit on multiple fronts. Not only does it cost more to fuel their equipment, but that’s on top of fertilizer costs that shot up earlier this year. AgWeek reported the difference in fertilizer prices:
In 2024, urea was $415 per ton, monoammonium phosphate [MAP] was $775 per ton, potash was $415 per ton, ammonium sulfate [AMS] was $420 per ton and 28% fertilizer — also known as urea ammonium nitrate — was $315 per ton. In 2026 urea is $570 per ton, MAP is $950 per ton, potash is $455 per ton, AMS is $460 per ton and 28% is $385 per ton.
An assistant professor and Extension specialist at South Dakota State University told AgWeek that nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fall prices are $40 to $175 per ton higher in 2026 than in 2024 in South Dakota.
South Dakota farmer Charleen Bowne blamed the war in Iran for the increase. “You look at the fertilizer cost from last year to this year, it’s a $300 to $400 difference, and it has to do with the war that’s carried on as long as it has. We depend on not just the United States to get things, we have to look at a global market to get things,” she said.
Illinois farmer John Yeley told Toledo, Ohio’s The Blade that three farmers in his county already folded up this year. And as in South Dakota, diesel prices have exacerbated existing difficulties that began with rising fertilizer prices.
Farmers buy thousands of gallons of diesel a year. Yeley buys about 8,500 twice a year. Charleen Bowne told AgWeek her farm uses between 9,000 and 10,000 gallons of diesel per year. Circumstances, however, have caused them to change how they buy fuel. Said Yeley:
This is the first year in my adult life that we have not bought an entire transport load either spring or fall due to fuel cost. We’ve been buying it piecemeal … 1,000 or 1,500 gallons at a time, hoping that we’d see a price drop. Unfortunately, it’s not happening.
“This May Just Be the End”
In Wisconsin, some ag producers are predicting the end of the road. Joel Greeno told The Country Today that he’s had to take on a lot of of credit-card debt to pay for equipment and fuel to harvest and transport his organic corn. “He’s being sued by creditors and has looked into declaring bankruptcy,” per the report. “For a lot of guys, this may just be the end,” Greeno said.
The report also hints that these crises may lead to something more serious:
Farmers have more at stake than their livelihoods. Suicide rates among farmers have spiked in the past few decades, as more and more family farms face financial ruin.
Times are hard for Americans. By all appearances, they are about to get harder. The increases in crop production and transportation costs are projected to raise grocery prices even higher. That goes for food and everything else that travels by truck — merchandise, lumber, building materials, and more.
But if you ask Trump, this is a small price to pay. He said last month high gas prices are “a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done,” referring to the war against Iran. The people who are losing multigenerational farms, their jobs, and their ability to provide for their families would beg to differ.
The Cost of Foreign Intervention
These hardships could have been avoided. This is the cost of American foreign intervention. It’s the cost of launching a war of choice in the Middle East and fueling the war in Ukraine. At the foundational level, this is the price Americans are paying for allowing the executive branch to usurp and exercise powers the Constitution never gave it. This is the cost of American apathy and ignorance.
