Mexico has fallen strangely silent on its Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT), designed to carry rail freight between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, in competition with the Panama Canal. 

In June 2024, the government posted a press release “presenting” the project to the U.S., in the form of a Mexican delegation to Washington, D.C., led by the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, and the Secretary of the Navy, Admiral Rafael Ojeda Durán, who traveled to meet with Amos Hochstein, U.S. special presidential coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security, and Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, homeland security advisor to then-President Biden

At that point, Mexican officials were selling the project as a partial cure for America’s immigration problems. “The CIIT is enormously important for creating jobs and growth in the south-southeast of Mexico,” the press release said. “It addresses the root causes of migration, promoting better opportunities and creating incentives for people to remain in their communities of origin by offering a better quality of life there.” The CIIT includes plans to stimulate economic growth around the trade corridor, which runs through some of the poorest regions of Southern Mexico. These could include 10 industrial parks to be built in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz.

According to WeBuildValue Digital Magazine, in March 2025, the Mexican government announced the project would receive a $7.5 billion investment in order to establish the nation as a key player in global trade.

On March 31, 2025, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum gave the project a shout-out at a news conference, saying that a maiden shipment of vehicles — 900 Hyundai cars from South Korea — was transported across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec by train over the preceding weekend, reported Mexico News Daily.

She said that “some products” had already been transported across the isthmus between Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, but it was the first time that vehicles were taken across the 308-kilometer-long modernized railroad between the two ports.

And on June 19, BNAmericas ran a story saying Octavio Sánchez, head of the CIIT project, said the entire rail line is expected to be ready in June 2026, when construction of rail line K is completed. 

However, official information about the project has since been scant. Requests for an update sent to the media department at www.gob.mx went unanswered.

Although the idea of finding another trade route across the isthmus that joins North America to Central and South America has been attracting investment and construction efforts for hundreds of years, the attraction of a freight route that avoids the Panama Canal (and a trip around Cape Horn) is now more pressing, as U.S. President Trump wrangles with Panama over ownership and control of the canal.

Read More: Panama Official Seeks Review of CK Hutchison Port Contract

The Trump administration has said it believes that, despite agreements transferring ownership from the U.S. to Panama 25 years ago, China effectively controls the canal. A recently announced deal to sell Hong-Kong-based CK Hutchison, which owns two critical ports at each mouth of the canal, to U.S. interests is now under threat from the Chinese government, further roiling the waters. The Panama Canal has also faced depleted water resources of late, forcing it to restrict ocean-going vessels from traversing the 51-mile waterway.

Mexico’s answer is a high-speed railway passage, stretching approximately 300 kilometers, from Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, on the Gulf of Mexico (Atlantic side) to Salina Cruz on the Pacific side. The project consists of the rehabilitation of the Tehuantepec Railway, which finished construction during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz in 1907. That project was built with similar goals, but started to fall out of use upon the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914. The CIIT will also modernize the ports at either end.

WeBuildValue, however, points to the difficulties of making the high-speed rail link and other required infrastructure a reality. Although the project has received $6 billion in funding from the Mexican government, with an additional $2 billion from international institutions, that funding is likely insufficient, it said.