Chasing The Horizon: Countdown to the Panama Canal Expansion

摘要

In the eight years since panamanians passed a referendum to modernize the Panama Canal, there has been endless speculation about how an early 20th-century engineering marvel might shake up the future of global trade. The addition of a third set of locks, and further deepening along the waterway, will increase vessel capacity from 4,500 to 14,000 TEUs while allowing another 2,000 transits annually-in effect turning the spigot on trade flows moving between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The end game for U.S. shippers and consignees is nebulous at best. But a number of current trends and trade dynamics add new color to the Panama question. Recurring labor strife on the West Coast, congestion concerns, equipment shortages, a sluggish ocean shipping industry, and nearshoring pose different quandaries.