36 
American Journal of Transportation
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The Panama Canal: 
A tangled web is weaved
The Panama Canal’s terminal management is 
a tangled web of geo-political influence and eco-
nomic necessities. Can it be untangled? Or is the 
future to be entwined by influences that lie thou-
sands of miles away?
 By George Lauriat, AJOT
(TANGLED – continued on 
page 38)
A Fiery Reminder
On April 6th an explosion 
and fire in La Boca near the 
Bridge of the Americas near the 
Pacific entrance to the Panama 
Canal served as a vivid reminder 
of the importance of the 40-mile 
interoceanic transportation cor-
ridor to international trade and 
Panama itself. The cause of the 
conflagration was sourced to 
a tank truck carrying fuel that 
caught fire and exploded. The 
blaze caused no disruption to 
Canal traffic.
With the Strait of Hormuz 
effectively held hostage by the 
war between Israel/US and 
Iran, Suez Canal traffic is effec-
tively strangled. By default, the 
Panama Canal is the world’s 
most irreplaceable manmade 
waterway: 
particularly 
for 
energy products. And the tran-
sit of export energy products to 
foreign markets (such as China) 
through the canal — especially 
LNG carriers —  might have 
been a partial, if not major 
motivation behind the Trump 
Administration’s push to end 
CK Hutchinson’s bookending 
canal concessions at the ports 
of Balboa and Cristobal. But it 
is the Panama Canal’s reach into 
North American markets that 
anoints the waterway as a true 
difference maker to the region’s 
supply chain.
Canal’s Uncommon Reach
The $5.2 billion widening 
of the Panama Canal, completed 
in 2016, opened the canal to 
transits of containerships over 
17,000 TEUs. But the proj-
ect’s impact was far beyond the 
Panama Canal itself. 
Take for instance the Port of 
New York/New Jersey, the larg-
est East Coast port, over 2,000 
nautical miles (NM) away from 
the Panama Canal. 
Beth Rooney, Port Director 
for the Port Authority of New 
York/New Jersey, when talking 
about the raising of the height of 
the Bayonne Bridge (completed 
in 2019) to accommodate the 
transit of larger Panamax con-
tainer ships said, “We knew that 
with the timing of the completion 
of the Panama Canal expansion, 
the timing of the completion of 
our 50-foot deepening project, 
and the raising of the Bayonne 
Bridge...the Port would be ready 
for larger ships.” 
And the Port of New York/
New Jersey wasn’t alone as 
ports along the American East 
Coast also readied themselves 
for the “big ships”. 
Up and down the US East 
Coast 13,000-14,000 TEU ships 
have become the workhorse 
class, which wouldn’t have hap-
pened without the widening of 
the canal.  
The importance of the 
widening is clear in the canal’s 
transit numbers. In FY 2025, 
the Panama Canal handled 
2,646  container ship transits 
out of a total of 13,404 vessels 
using the canal. Of the con-
tainership total transiting the 
canal, 1,793 boxships used the 
“Neo-Panamax” locks — the 
new widened locks that opened 
in 2016. Only 853 used the con-
ventional locks.
A Tangled Web is Weaved
In 2025 the Trump Admin-
istration turned up the heat on 
Panama to remove the Hong 
A view of the Balboa Port, Panama City, Panama, March 4, 2025. REUTERS/Enea Lebrun

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