Mexico Develops Way Around Canals During Shipping Chaos

Mexico is giving shippers a new way to skip the line at clogged canals: Put the cargo on a train. The government has poured at least $4 billion since 2019 into the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a 190-mile rail link between Gulf and Pacific ports pitched as a "dry canal" to complement Panama and attract factories to Mexico's poor south, Bloomberg reports. "Mexico is trying to finally realize a logistical dream that dates back more than a century," said Marco Cancino, an economist and think tank expert.

Officials say containers could cross in about a day, and early tests have included Hyundai and Kia vehicles. But even the government's 2035 target of 1.4 million containers is a sliver of Panama's traffic, and the project is wrestling with thin infrastructure, scarce electricity, derailments, and investor wariness. President Claudia Sheinbaum considers the corridor key to economic growth and regularly reviews progress, per Bloomberg. But as another expert put it, global shipping habits are hard to reroute, and doing so will take time.