Logistics Pulse by FulfillYN

Good morning. It's been a week. Actually, it's been that kind of week — the kind where you open five browser tabs about tariffs and close all of them because none of the information will still be accurate by the time you finish reading.

We have a lot to cover,

After the Supreme Court struck down Trump's IEEPA tariffs on Feb. 20, Trump turned around and imposed a new 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 — a law that's never actually been invoked before. He then promised to bump it to 15% "effective immediately." That 15% is now, per Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, likely happening this week.

But it gets messier. On March 4, a federal judge ordered Customs and Border Protection to issue universal refunds for all IEEPA tariffs ever paid — not just to the companies that sued, but to every importer who paid those duties. That's an estimated $166 billion across more than 53 million entries. The problem? CBP said processing all of that manually would take 4.4 million labor hours and basically shut the agency down. So enforcement is paused for roughly 45 days while they build automated systems. If you're owed a refund, make sure your ACE portal is set up for electronic ACH payments — CBP has stopped cutting paper checks.

Meanwhile, a coalition of 24 states filed suit on March 5 to block the Section 122 tariffs entirely. Their argument: the law was designed for dollar-gold crises in the 1960s and 70s, not standard trade deficits. And awkwardly, Trump's own Justice Department argued last year that Section 122 didn't apply to trade deficits — a point the plaintiff states are very happy to remind everyone about.

The irony: Trump's legal footing is actually somewhat stronger under Section 122 than it was under IEEPA, according to Georgetown trade law scholars. So this fight could go differently in court.

What it means for 3PLs: More volatility. More client anxiety. More contract renegotiations. Bessent says the dust should settle within five months as USTR and Commerce complete trade studies. That's a long five months if you're trying to price freight right now.

For the past two years, the American consumer has been the load-bearing wall of the US economy. This week, there were some cracks worth watching.

Retail sales fell 0.2% in January — the biggest single-month decline since last May. Meanwhile, the February jobs report showed employers shed 92,000 jobs, pushing unemployment to 4.4%. The stock market, which had been providing a nice spending tailwind for wealthier households, dropped on the news.

Now, economists aren't sounding alarm bells just yet. Tax refunds are running about 20% higher than last year, which should provide a spending bump this spring. And the job market, while softening, isn't in freefall. But the combination of higher prices (tariffs), higher debt loads for lower-income Americans, slowing wage growth at the bottom, and now weakening job numbers is a cocktail freight operators should pay attention to.

The logistics read: If consumer spending softens meaningfully in Q2, the freight volume tailwinds from the last few quarters will start to look much less reliable. Watch the next two retail sales reports closely.

Target had its annual investor day in Minneapolis last week, and CEO Michael Fiddelke basically said: “We lost our way, here's how we get it back.”

The pitch centers on "busy families" — specifically, time-crunched parents who want a curated, trustworthy store rather than an everything-store. Fiddelke, who joined Target as a finance intern in 2003 and has lived the busy-parent life himself, said the company hasn't been a pacesetter in categories like home goods "for the last few years." He said that out loud, in a room full of investors.

To fix it, Target is throwing another $1 billion at the problem this year — on top of the $1 billion in capex announced last year. A few hundred million of that goes to store staffing and training. They're also testing "baby concierges", expanding their Cloud Island clothing brand, and pushing groceries into more floor space. Thirty new stores are opening in 2026, and 130 existing stores are getting full remodels.

The company expects net sales growth in every quarter of 2026, following a 1.7% decline last fiscal year.

For 3PLs with Target as a client: More SKUs, more remodels, more grocery, and a fresh supply chain buildout all mean increased fulfillment complexity heading into the back half of the year, and maybe even some customers losing contracts with Target if they don’t align with Target’s new trajectory.