墨西哥跨洋走廊：航运咽喉的另类解

David Westin: This is a story about choke points. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz has reminded the world that, for all the flexibility of shipment by sea, geography creates a handful of points around the globe that can wreak havoc with commerce if they are cut off, which makes it all the more important that Mexico is undertaking a massive project to create an alternative to one of the world's most famous waterways.

Bloomberg's Simon Hampton has the story. -In the Veracruz region of Mexico, some 1,200 miles north of the Panama Canal, lies what's known as the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, or CIIT. -We're standing at the terminal for the train ship here at Coatzacoalcos. This is the only one in Latin America, and it's become a very important service here. -This port in Coatzacoalcos is one end of the so-called Dry Canal cutting across Mexico, a combination of rail and road connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. -It doesn't have to change from the truck to the train and then add all these costs for operations. - Alejandra Velásquez is the Head of Investment and Commercial Development for the CIIT.

I've seen it described online as a competitor to the Panama Canal. Do you see it that way? -Of course not. No, I mean, the corridor is just an alternative. For some industries or for some companies, the corridor would be a better alternative, at some point. And some of the time, you're going to use just the Panama Canal. At the beginning, it was offering service only for all the oil and derivatives industry. But today, with the growth of the rail service here at the south of Mexico, companies located at the very south of Mexico are considering to use also this service to get to Florida or even to New York. -And that need for alternatives is rising as supply chain choke points become a recurring feature in the world today.

While much of the world focuses on the Strait of Hormuz, a recent report from the Council on Foreign Relations highlighted potential risk spots elsewhere, including in the Strait of Malacca, where as much as 40% of global seaborne trade transits annually, or the Taiwan Strait, where around 44% of the global container fleet transits each year, and the Panama Canal, which handles about 40% of container trade between Asia and America's East Coast. -We're using an environment where choke points were considered, I would say, secure of access, reasonably accessible, but now it seems to be more and more uncertain in certain areas. -Jean-Paul Rodrigue is a professor at Texas A&M University's Department of Maritime Business Administration. -We often say that geography has a sense of humor, which means we have a world composed of 70%, 75% of ocean, but connecting these oceans can only be done through a very few strategic locations, such as the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca, among others.

When these strategic locations get disrupted, it creates significant, you could say, domino effect on international trade, either by limiting, you could say, opportunities, accessibility to key resources and markets, or, most of the time, imposing substantial deviations over long distances, which creates stress on global supply chains. I would say it goes in cycles. For instance, in the early 70s, the Suez Canal was closed for close to a decade because of conflicts between Israel and the neighboring Arab countries.

So history sometimes repeats itself a little bit. So there are events, and then they abate, they go away, and then we go back to business. But this time it's a little bit more severe, because of, you could say, the projection of power that Iran is exerting on two key strategic locations, which are, of course, the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, as well, on the Red Sea. So this time it's a little bit different.

It's two strategic locations which are excessively important. There's not that much you can do outside deviations. You go around, if possible. Otherwise, you try to find alternative routes, which tend to be overland routes, and this is what is currently happening in the Persian Gulf, with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, contemplating and using their existing, you could say, alternative routes, overland, through pipelines or for oil, and, of course, with roads or rail for containers. -Increasingly, shipping companies are pursuing those alternative routes.

Middle Eastern countries are pouring money into pipelines to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, while melting polar ice helped a Chinese shipping company become the first to make regular service through the Arctic and avoid hoothie attacks in the Red Sea. For Mexico's CIIT, the Panama Canal's 2023 drought offered an early glimpse at the demand it could face. -Let's talk about 2023, when the Panama Canal had this trouble about the level of the Gatun Lake. 3 of the main shipping lines called us to ask, like, are you ready to receive containers?

Because they were, like, losing a lot of money. Unfortunately, at that time, the train was not ready when they called. But in those cases, also the idea is to position the corridor as a high-quality and a competitive alternative for the different, of course, disruptions that now we can see they're going to be, like, more frequently. -But I assume you also want to be more than just an emergency alternative for companies as well. -Totally, totally.

I mean, the fact is that the corridor was born with, like, a main idea. Cross cargo from one side to another and just use two ports. Today, we grew. We're considering 4 ports in the south of Mexico. -Yet in a world where choke point disruptions can happen at a moment's notice, the presence of alternative routes is one thing. Identifying and implementing them at speed is another. That's where supply chain logistics firm Exiger comes in.

Brandon Daniels is the company's CEO. -So here you've got aluminum, which is inside of their components. So it says, "Active shipment of aluminum extrusion billets." So it's not just saying, "Hey, aluminum's a risk," which is what everyone knows today. It's, "Here's the exact part that that aluminum "is going into "and that you require "in order to produce what you're manufacturing." That is subject to a critical risk closure.

So you're not going to get those ships through. You're not going to get those components through. The alternative corridors are not open to allowing you to reroute them today. And so what we're doing is then we're assessing. And often these are customized or configured by how the customer thinks about the alternatives and thinks about risk. The volume of disruption has increased astronomically and it has laid bare the fragility of our supply chains.

Over the last 6 years, the number one issue at every board is supply chain procurement. It's how are we going to navigate an increasingly volatile world, a world that we were made aware of through COVID. And so when we give you a problem, it's important that we contextualize that problem. And then once they've prioritized it, we actually help them to determine the courses of action. Some of those will be courses of action to reroute goods 5 days out. -So how quickly can a company that you're working with go from identifying a risk to implementing a change in the supply chain? -Once you're actually in the system, once that ERP is connected and we have your suppliers loaded in the system, you can literally see an issue in real time occurring.

Whether it's the issues with the Houthis attacking vessels in the Red Sea or it's a new party being added to the OFAC list. - Disruptions are costly for business. Houthi attacks in the Red Sea added an estimated $1 million per voyage and drove up wartime insurance by 900% at its peak. It's hoped that alternative corridors like CIIT combined with platforms like Exiger could help mitigate risk for global trade. -As the supply chains redistribute, as the supply chains start to