Diesel Up 50%, Freight at 4‐Year High - How Autonomous Trucking Is Reshaping Steel Logistics

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There are moments when a sector's cost structure changes so fundamentally that the old assumptions stop working. For U.S. steel logistics, that moment appears to have arrived.

In the first week of April 2026, trucking operators were contending with diesel prices that had spiked nearly 50% since late February, driven by military conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran that effectively disrupted flows through the Strait of Hormuz - a waterway that normally handles around 20% of global oil supply. Bloomberg reported that fuel surcharges paid by shippers had risen to their highest level since 2022. The load-to-truck ratio was running at a four-year high. Carriers were slowing down, declining unprofitable loads, and cutting deadhead miles wherever possible. And beneath all of that, the American Trucking Associations had already documented that the average marginal cost to operate a truck in 2024 was roughly 34% higher than a decade earlier.

For steel companies, service centers, and the carriers they depend on, this is not an abstract macroeconomic problem. Steel moves by the ton, over long distances, on tight schedules. When a coil mill in Indiana ships product to a service center in Texas, or a tube processor in Ohio sends finished pipe to an energy customer in the Permian Basin, the freight cost is embedded directly in the delivered price. A few percentage points of fuel inflation can flip a profitable order to a marginal one. A missed delivery can ripple through a customer's production schedule with consequences far beyond the freight bill itself.

That is why what is happening in autonomous trucking matters for steel. The technology is no longer a distant promise or a venture capital experiment. Aurora Innovation is operating driverless trucks on 10 commercial routes across the Sun Belt. Gatik has completed more than 60,000 fully driverless commercial orders without incident. Kodiak is partnering with Bosch to bring production-grade autonomous hardware to the mass market. Taken together, these developments represent the beginning of a structural shift in how heavy freight moves in the United States - and the steel industry, with its predictable lanes, its heavy loads, and its acute exposure to fuel cost volatility, is one of the sectors best positioned to benefit from that shift.

This article examines why the cost pressures are intensifying, how autonomous trucking is developing in practical commercial terms, which providers are best positioned to serve steel logistics, and what it will take for mills, service centers, and carriers to adapt successfully.

The 2026 geopolitical shock arrived with unusual speed and severity. Following U.S. and Israeli military strikes on Iran in late February, Brent crude rose from roughly $73 a barrel on February 27 to $120 on March 9 - a 65% increase within two weeks. Iran responded by targeting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict led to the suspension of about a fifth of global crude oil and natural gas supply, as Tehran targeted ships in the vital Strait of Hormuz and attacked energy infrastructure across the region.

The downstream effect on U.S. trucking was immediate. Trucking operators saw diesel prices spike by almost 50% since the start of the conflict at the end of February. Haulers responded by raising the weekly per-mile fuel surcharge paid by shippers to its highest level since 2022, according to Truckstop.com data. Dean Croke, Industry Analyst at DAT Freight and Analytics, noted that carriers were responding by cutting deadhead miles, looking for lighter loads, and slowing down - pointing out that reducing speed from 75 to 65 miles per hour saves roughly eight to nine cents per mile in fuel.

For steel shippers specifically, this kind of fuel spike is particularly damaging. Steel products are heavy, dense, and often transported in flatbed or open-deck configurations that offer no flexibility on load weight. A steel service center moving coils or structural sections from a mill cannot reduce the weight of the shipment to offset fuel costs the way a consumer goods shipper might. The entire freight inflation passes through.

The current national average price for diesel fuel in the US has reached about $5.40 per gallon as of early April 2026, reflecting a sharp 0.48% week-over-week increase from the prior period. This surge, up over 51% from last year, stems from geopolitical tensions like the Iran conflict driving crude oil costs higher, compounded by supply disruptions. While AAA notes a slightly elevated $5.65 average, the EIA's $5.401 benchmark highlights ongoing volatility, with West Coast states facing even steeper prices around $6.60.

The current fuel shock is compounding a structural freight market shift that was already underway before the Middle East conflict began. For context, the average marginal cost to operate a truck in 2024 was around 34% higher than in 2014, according to the American Transportation Research Institute. Years of carrier attrition during the prolonged freight market downturn reduced available capacity precisely as demand began recovering. The result is a market where shippers who treated carriers as interchangeable during softer periods are now discovering that relationship-based capacity matters more than price optimization.

Carriers now have choices, and they are choosing committed freight first. The load-to-truck ratio is at a four-year high. For steel logistics, that creates a compounding risk: not only are freight rates rising, but spot capacity may be unavailable precisely when steel demand is strong and on-time delivery is most critical.

Steel logistics has structural characteristics that amplify these pressures. Most steel products move by truck at some point in their journey from mill to end customer, whether as hot-rolled coil shipped to a service center, as cut and processed sheet delivered to a stamper, or as structural sections hauled to a construction site. Unlike many freight categories, steel cannot be shipped in smaller increments to manage cost - minimum order quantities and just-in-time manufacturing schedules mean that the truck either moves at full capacity or the customer's production line may stop.

The delivered cost model that dominates steel distribution means that freight inflation is visible, immediate, and difficult to absorb without margin compression or customer friction. When diesel spikes, steel service centers feel it within days, not quarters. And when carrier capacity tightens, the premium for reliable, committed freight relationships becomes concrete and measurable.

This is the context in which autonomous trucking has moved from an interesting technology story to a practical business question for the steel industry.

The case for autonomous trucking in steel is not primarily about eliminating drivers. It is about matching the operating model of autonomous systems to the structural characteristics of steel freight - and finding that the fit is better than many people assume.

Steel logistics is dominated by what might be called structured repetition. A mill in Alabama ships the same grades of hot-rolled coil to the same service center in Texas every week. A tube producer in Ohio moves finished product to the same distributor network on predictable lane schedules. A steel service center in Phoenix replenishes from the same regional warehouse on a regular cycle. These are not random shipments - they are scheduled, disciplined, and route-consistent.

That is exactly what autonomous systems are designed for. The near-term commercial model for autonomous long-haul freight is built around hub-to-hub operations on repeatable corridors: autonomous systems handle the highway portion of the trip, while existing carriers, dispatchers, and terminal teams continue to manage loading, unloading, customer coordination, and exception handling at the endpoints. The highway leg is where most of the fuel consumption, most of the driver hours, and most of the operating cost accumulates. It is also where the technology performs best.

For steel logistics, this hub-to-hub model translates directly to mill-to-service-center corridors, regional distribution lanes between transload points and end customers, and the dense freight networks that connect steel processors to their industrial clients. A service center in the Sun Belt shipping product between a Midwest mill and a regional warehouse may find that the highway portion of that lane - potentially hundreds of miles of structured interstate driving - is exactly the segment where autonomous freight adds the most immediate value.

The technology also addresses the driver availability problem, which is a long-term structural constraint that existed well before the current fuel crisis. The trucking industry has faced a documented shortage of qualified commercial drivers for years, driven by demographics, regulatory requirements, and the demanding nature of long-haul work. Autonomous highway freight does not eliminate the need for drivers - it changes where and how they are deployed, concentrating human involvement at the points where judgment, customer interaction, and physical handling are genuinely required.

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Aurora is pursuing what may be the most ambitious long-haul autonomous freight program in North America, and its progress in early 2026 is significant by any measure. Since launching driverless operations in April 2025, Aurora has expanded its autonomous driving network across Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, logging over 250,000 incident-free miles.

In February 2026, Aurora announced it was tripling its driverless network with the launch of its latest software release, providing the Aurora Driver with the capabilities to begin expanding across the southern United States and serve customer endpoints in 2026. The network now operates on 10 routes, including lanes connecting Dallas and Houston, Fort Worth and El Paso, El Paso and Phoenix, Fort Worth and Phoenix, and Dallas and Laredo.

One milestone stands out for steel logistics in particular. Aurora validated a nearly 1,000-mile lane between Fort Worth and Phoenix - a route that exceeds traditional Hours of Service limitations for human drivers. Without mandatory rest breaks, an autonomous truck can complete that corridor faster than a human driver legally can, improving asset utilization and reducing transit times simultaneously. Aurora projects its trucks will operate approximately 20 hours per day, underscoring the utilization advantage of autonomous operations compared to traditional driver-hour constraints.

The scale ambitions are equally significant. Aurora CEO Chris Urmson said the company is working with Roush to produce 20 trucks per week toward the end of 2026, targeting a fleet of more than 200 driverless trucks operating on the road by the end of the year. Aurora has also partnered with a broad ecosystem of industry leaders including FedEx, Hirschbach, PACCAR, Ryder, Schneider, Toyota, Uber Freight, Volvo Trucks, and Werner - a roster that signals the technology is moving from novelty to operational reality.

Aurora's commercial truck capacity is fully committed through the third quarter of 2026, signaling what it described as accelerating demand for autonomous freight capacity. That commercial signal matters: it is not just that the trucks are running, but that shippers are actively committing to them.

For steel logistics, Aurora's strength is in linehaul. The Fort Worth-to-Phoenix corridor is a direct analog for mill-to-service-center freight on Sun Belt lanes. The company's next-generation hardware, which is designed to reduce overall cost by half while doubling sensor range, is also being integrated into the Volvo VNL Autonomous platform - a production vehicle rather than a prototype - which signals the kind of fleet-level commercialization that steel carriers need.

Kodiak AI is taking a fundamentally different approach that may prove especially relevant for steel carriers and service centers that operate mixed fleets and cannot afford to wait for a complete vehicle replacement cycle.

At the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Kodiak announced that it had entered into an agreement with Bosch, the world's largest global automotive supplier, to collaborate on and scale the manufacturing of a production-grade, redundant autonomous platform. This platform contains the specialized hardware, firmware, and software interfaces that enable the Kodiak Driver to automate trucks - either on a vehicle production line or through an upfitter.

The upfitter pathway is the critical distinction. By designing a system that can be installed by a third party after a truck leaves the factory, Kodiak is enabling carriers to retrofit existing tractors rather than purchasing entirely new vehicles. Kodiak Founder and CEO Don Burnette described the ambition precisely: Bosch and Kodiak will work together on redundant platforms designed to turn semi trucks - regardless of manufacturer - into driverless ones.

The company expects to fully deploy its driverless platform in long-haul trucking on public roads by the end of 2026. Kodiak is already operating commercially in the Permian Basin, where in January 2025, Kodiak's self-driving trucks began making driverless deliveries for Atlas Energy Solutions in the oil-rich Permian Basin of West Texas and eastern New Mexico. Kodiak has since delivered at least eight self-driving trucks to Atlas Energy as part of an initial 100-truck order.

The Atlas Energy deployment is instructive for steel logistics. Operating in the Permian Basin's harsh environment has provided Kodiak with deep operational experience that extends beyond autonomous driving technology, including data allowing for optimized predictive maintenance schedules and refinement of its Traversability Framework, which governs how the Kodiak Driver navigates ground-level hazards including potholes, puddles, ditches, dust storms, and flash floods. Industrial freight in demanding environments - the kind of conditions that steel carriers regularly face - is precisely where Kodiak's operational experience is accumulating.

Kodiak also emphasizes that operational infrastructure is as critical as the driving technology itself. The company's remote command center capabilities, maintenance logistics, and fleet data systems are positioned as complements to the autonomous driving stack rather than afterthoughts. For steel carriers evaluating autonomous technology, that operational maturity matters as much as the software headline.

Kodiak currently operates autonomous trucks on public highways, running routes such as Dallas to Atlanta, Dallas to Houston, and Dallas to Oklahoma City - routes that track closely with major steel distribution corridors in the central and southeastern United States.

If Aurora represents the long-haul future and Kodiak represents the retrofit-friendly path to fleet integration, Gatik is the clearest demonstration that fully driverless commercial freight is already a present-tense reality.

Gatik has become the first company in North America to deploy fully driverless trucks in commercial operations at scale, with $600 million in contracted revenue and daily deliveries for Fortune 50 retailers with no human driver or safety observer behind the wheel.

The operational numbers are specific and meaningful. Since launching freight-only operations in mid-2025, Gatik has completed 60,000 fully driverless orders without incident, logged more than 2,000 hours of driverless operation across multiple logistics networks, and completed over 10,000 driverless miles on public roads. Gautam Narang, CEO and co-founder of Gatik, has stated directly that autonomous trucking is no longer a promise - it is a business, with the company's contracted revenue providing the commercial proof.

Operating in the Dallas-Fort Worth region of Texas, the Phoenix metro area in Arizona, and Northwest Arkansas, Gatik's fleet of 26- and 30-foot autonomous box trucks operates nearly 24 hours a day on both highways and surface streets, moving ambient, refrigerated, and frozen goods. Routes extend up to 400 miles, connecting dense networks of distribution centers, warehouses, and retail stores.

A Gatik spokesperson noted that $400 million of the $600 million in contracted revenue came in the second half of 2025 - a figure that signals not just technology adoption but genuine commercial acceleration.

For steel logistics, Gatik's model is most directly applicable to middle-mile and regional distribution. Steel service centers often function as high-value distribution hubs: they receive product from mills, process it to customer specifications, and ship it out on regular lanes to industrial and construction customers. The more predictable the route structure, the better the fit for autonomous freight. Gatik's focus on dense, repeatable network operations and its deployment in the Phoenix metro area - a major steel distribution market for the Southwest - makes it directly relevant to service centers considering their logistics options.

Gatik's trucks are commercially deployed across Texas, Arkansas, Arizona, Nebraska, and Ontario, Canada, with plans to expand to new U.S. markets in the near future. Strategic partners supporting scaled operations include Isuzu Motors, NVIDIA, and Ryder.

Each provider is solving a slightly different version of the steel logistics problem. Aurora is the answer for a carrier or shipper who needs autonomous capacity on long, repeatable highway corridors. Kodiak is the answer for a fleet operator who wants to integrate autonomy into existing assets without a complete vehicle refresh. Gatik is the answer for a regional distribution operation where middle-mile reliability and route density matter most.

For the steel industry - where capital discipline is embedded in the culture and where fleet investment decisions are made with a careful eye on utilization economics - the retrofit question may be the most important practical issue in the autonomous trucking conversation.

A steel carrier operating a mixed fleet of 50 to 200 tractors cannot simply replace that fleet with autonomous vehicles. The capital cost would be prohibitive, the technology transition too abrupt, and the operational learning curve too steep. What that carrier can do is add autonomous capability to specific lanes, on specific vehicles, in a controlled and incremental way. That is exactly what a retrofit-compatible platform like Kodiak's makes possible.

The retrofit pathway also matters because steel distribution relies heavily on carrier relationships built over years. Service centers work with dedicated carriers who know their yards, their loading procedures, their customer requirements, and their lane structures. An autonomous technology that can be layered onto those existing relationships - rather than forcing a complete replacement of the carrier network - is far more likely to achieve meaningful adoption in the near term.

In practical terms, a steel service center or carrier pursuing this approach would identify its most predictable, highest-volume lanes first. These are typically the routes with the most consistent freight density, the clearest route structure, and the lowest variability in loading and delivery requirements. An autonomous system tested and validated on those lanes first can then expand lane by lane as confidence builds, regulatory clarity improves, and the economics are validated.

This incremental, lane-by-lane approach is not a compromise on ambition. It is the correct strategy for a sector where operational reliability is the primary metric and where disruptions to supply chain flow have immediate consequences for downstream customers.

Autonomous trucks are the most visible element of a broader transformation in freight intelligence, but they are not the whole picture. Smart logistics - the integration of routing software, visibility tools, fleet management systems, and autonomous operations into a unified decision-making layer - is what makes autonomous freight commercially workable at scale.

In steel distribution, smart logistics means knowing precisely where a shipment is at every point in the journey, when it will arrive, how much fuel it is consuming, whether a lane can be automated or requires human intervention, and how to respond when exceptions occur. AI-driven route planning can reduce wasted miles and improve asset utilization. Load visibility tools allow service centers to manage inventory more precisely. Exception management systems reduce the manual coordination burden on dispatch teams when something goes wrong.

The most significant benefit for steel logistics is predictability. Steel customers - whether they are automotive stampers, construction contractors, or industrial manufacturers - operate on schedules that depend on on-time delivery of the right material in the right quantity. An intelligent logistics system that can reliably deliver that consistency, even in a volatile freight market, is worth a meaningful premium over a system that simply offers a lower per-mile rate.

When autonomous highway freight is integrated with smart logistics software, the combination becomes more powerful than either element alone. The autonomous truck is the physical execution layer. The smart logistics platform is the decision-making and visibility layer. Together, they give carriers and shippers a level of operational intelligence that manual dispatch and human-driven fleets cannot easily match - particularly on the dense, high-frequency routes that characterize steel distribution.

This is also where transportation management system (TMS) integration becomes critical. Several of the leading autonomous providers are already building TMS compatibility into their platforms. Aurora's partnership with McLeod Software is one example: it enables customers to integrate Aurora's autonomous freight capacity directly into their existing dispatch and load management workflows, rather than treating it as a separate system to be managed alongside conventional operations.

Steel companies, service centers, and contract carriers evaluating autonomous logistics technology should focus on a specific set of practical criteria, because the steel freight environment is unforgiving of technology that works in a demo but fails in production.

Route compatibility is the starting point. Does the autonomous provider operate on corridors that match the shipper's actual freight lanes? A service center in Phoenix should evaluate whether a provider's routes connect to its mill suppliers, its processing points, and its end customers - not just whether the technology works in general.

Fleet integration is the second critical question. Can the system be applied to existing vehicles, or does it require new equipment? For carriers with established fleets and established maintenance relationships, retrofit capability may be more important than the sophistication of the autonomous system itself.

Dispatch and TMS compatibility determines whether autonomous capacity can be incorporated into existing operations or requires a parallel management structure. The providers making the most progress on commercial adoption are those that have built direct integrations with the TMS platforms that steel carriers already use.

Safety record and validation process is non-negotiable. How many miles has the system operated? What is its incident record? What independent safety reviews have been conducted? For heavy freight - where loaded weights can exceed 80,000 pounds - the safety validation bar should be high.

Operational support model - including maintenance, remote monitoring, and exception handling - determines whether autonomous capacity can sustain commercial performance over time, not just in ideal conditions. Kodiak's emphasis on operational infrastructure alongside autonomous driving technology reflects an understanding that the truck is only one part of the commercial system.

Weather and environmental performance matters particularly in regions where steel mills and service centers operate. The Southwest and Sun Belt are relatively favorable for autonomous operations, but carriers serving the Midwest and Northeast need to understand how systems perform in winter weather, rain, and fog. Aurora's latest software release, which extended all-weather capability across the Sun Belt's diverse climate zones, is a direct response to this requirement.

The geography of early autonomous trucking adoption maps onto the geography of U.S. steel distribution in ways that are not coincidental. The Sun Belt - Texas, Arizona, the Southeast - is where Aurora, Gatik, and Kodiak are all building their initial commercial networks. It is also where several of the largest steel service center operations in the country are concentrated.

A service center in the Dallas-Fort Worth area receiving product from a Gulf Coast mill or a Midwest producer via a Texas transload point is operating on exactly the kind of corridor where autonomous highway freight makes immediate commercial sense. The lanes are long, the volumes are predictable, and the scheduling is disciplined. The autonomous provider's fixed costs are absorbed over high freight density, and the service center benefits from improved transit time consistency and reduced exposure to fuel cost volatility.

The Phoenix metro area - served by both Aurora's expanding network and Gatik's deployed operations - is another natural early-adoption zone for steel logistics. Arizona's construction and manufacturing growth has driven significant steel distribution activity, and the Sun Belt routing from Texas mills to Arizona service centers aligns directly with the corridors where autonomous freight is proving out commercially.

The Midwest and Southeast will follow as autonomous networks expand. Aurora's planned extension toward Dallas-Atlanta and Aurora's stated goal of deploying along the I-20 corridor point toward a network that will eventually cover the major steel distribution arteries of the country.

The carriers and service centers that establish relationships with these providers now - learning the integration requirements, the operational protocols, and the lane qualification processes - will be better positioned to scale their autonomous capacity when the networks expand than those who wait for the technology to be fully mature before engaging.

An honest accounting of autonomous trucking's near-term potential requires acknowledging its real constraints. The technology is advancing rapidly, but the commercial and regulatory landscape remains uneven.

Regulatory complexity is a persistent challenge. Autonomous trucking regulations vary by state, and federal frameworks are still evolving. The SELF DRIVE Act of 2026 has begun to formalize an autonomous vehicle framework at the federal level, which should reduce state-by-state variability over time. However, operating in new markets still requires navigating state and local regulatory requirements, and the process of securing regulatory clearance for new corridors takes time.

Insurance and liability frameworks have not yet fully adapted to autonomous freight. Carriers and shippers who adopt autonomous capacity need to understand how liability is allocated in the event of an incident, and how their insurance coverage applies to vehicles that may operate without a human driver for the majority of a trip.

Edge cases and operational variability remain genuine technical challenges. Autonomous systems perform best on structured, well-mapped corridors in favorable conditions. Complex yard operations, unusual loading situations, weather extremes, and construction zones can still require human intervention. The providers that are being most transparent about these limitations - and building robust remote assistance capabilities to handle them - are the ones that will sustain commercial operations over time.

Workforce transition is a dimension that steel logistics operators should think about now rather than later. Autonomous trucking does not necessarily produce a smaller workforce. It produces a different one. Remote operators, fleet data analysts, autonomous systems maintenance technicians, and dispatch specialists who can manage human-autonomous mixed fleets will be in demand as adoption scales. The companies that begin training and hiring for these roles now will face less operational disruption when autonomous capacity represents a meaningful share of their freight network.

Available evidence suggests that the next two to three years will be defined by gradual, lane-by-lane expansion rather than rapid network replacement. The winners in this period will be those who approach autonomy as a systematic integration effort rather than a binary switch.

The steel industry has navigated technology transitions before - from integrated mills to minimills, from manual processing to laser cutting, from paper-based order management to digital platforms. Each transition rewarded early adopters who engaged with the technology while it was still developing and built operational competence before their competitors.

Autonomous logistics is following a similar pattern. The providers are real, the commercial operations are demonstrably functional, and the economic case is becoming clearer as fuel volatility reinforces the value of operating models that are less exposed to diesel price swings. A carrier that commits 20% of its highest-volume, most predictable lanes to autonomous freight today is not taking a technological risk - it is managing an economic one.

The question of timing is partly a question of positioning. Aurora's goal of building dense Sun Belt freight corridors could support higher load volumes, showcase real-world performance to freight customers, and test whether its Transportation as a Service and Driver as a Service models can meaningfully improve unit economics at scale. Steel shippers who establish relationships with these providers as customers now will have preferential access to capacity as networks expand - and will have accumulated the operational experience needed to scale that capacity intelligently.

For steel service centers, the most practical near-term step is a lane-level assessment: identifying which freight corridors have the route consistency, volume density, and scheduling discipline to qualify for autonomous freight integration, and then engaging directly with the relevant providers to understand integration requirements, lead times, and commercial terms.

For steel carriers, the most important question is whether their existing fleet assets and dispatch infrastructure are compatible with the retrofit and integration pathways that Kodiak and others are developing. The carriers that have begun those conversations - that understand the technical requirements and have started the process of qualifying their lanes and assets - will be in a materially stronger competitive position than those who are still treating autonomous trucking as something to watch rather than something to engage with.

The convergence of fuel shock, geopolitical disruption, structural freight rate escalation, and advancing autonomous technology has created an unusual moment for U.S. steel logistics. The pressures are real and immediate. The solutions are advancing faster than many in the industry expected.

Aurora is building a long-haul driverless network across the Sun Belt that could reshape the economics of mill-to-service-center freight within the next 18 months. Kodiak is developing the retrofit-compatible hardware platform that could allow existing steel carriers to integrate autonomous capability without replacing their fleets. Gatik has already proven that fully driverless commercial freight operations can run at scale, with contractual revenue in the hundreds of millions confirming that customers are paying for the capability, not just evaluating it.

The steel industry's greatest structural advantage in this transition is the same thing that makes it a compelling autonomous trucking use case: its freight is disciplined, its routes are predictable, and its scheduling requirements reward reliability over everything else. Those are not constraints on automation - they are the conditions that automation is designed to serve.

The question is no longer whether steel logistics will change. The fuel volatility, the regulatory evolution, and the commercial progress of autonomous providers have made change inevitable. The only open question is which carriers and service centers will build the competence, establish the partnerships, and make the operational adjustments early enough to turn volatility into advantage - and which will be forced to adapt under pressure, on someone else's timeline.

For those ready to act: the companies demonstrating that driverless freight works at commercial scale are operating right now, on routes that cross the same Sun Belt corridors where U.S. steel moves every day. The conversation about whether to engage with them has become significantly more urgent.

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