Mexico tops US trade rankings in June as Laredo handles $36.5B in freight
FreightWaves · Aug 12, 2026
Mexico’s dominance in U.S. trade continued in June as Laredo remained the primary gateway for North American freight.
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What this moves
Context or analysis — nothing has stopped moving.
No freight-market transmission has been identified for this story yet. It is listed for context.
The corridor
US–Mexico & US–Canada land crossings
Domestic corridorNorth AmericaLaredo, Otay Mesa, El Paso, Detroit–Windsor and Buffalo–Fort Erie carry the overwhelming majority of North American surface trade. Nearshoring has made these crossings, rather than the ocean ports, the growth constraint for a lot of US import volume.
- Inspection-intensity changes cut effective throughput within hours, with no change in physical infrastructure — a policy decision behaves like a capacity cut.
- Crossing queues are highly concentrated: Laredo alone handles a large share of US–Mexico truck freight, so a single crossing's problem is a national one.
- Tariff and customs-procedure changes produce front-loading surges ahead of an effective date, then a slump after it, distorting volumes in both directions.
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