Tristar Port has invested more than $100m on infrastructure that the state has not provided, and plans a further $150m within two years, chief executive Cristobal Schlaubitz told TOC Americas in Cartagena.
Isaac Ray Wingfield, head of ports and global transportation at AECOM, said expiring concessions across Latin America will force new operators into major capital spending within six years.
From Guyana’s oil-fuelled growth to St Maarten’s tourism economy, panellists from CARICOM, Puerto Bahía and Port of Guyana set out what the Great Caribbean most needs to work as one market.
Port and CARICOM leaders at TOC Americas 2026 in Cartagena assessed capital, congestion and human capital challenges facing the Great Caribbean’s ports, carriers and island communities.
Ocean transport carries about 90% of the region's imports and almost 78% of its food, while the Caribbean's Maritime Connectivity Index has fallen over the past 15 years, CARICOM's Curtis said.
Shipowners won’t invest in new-fuel vessels until ports can supply them, and ports won’t invest until the ships exist, World Bank’s Dominik Englert said, urging operators to start small rather than wait for IMO certainty.
From the World Bank to a Chilean container line, six speakers at TOC Americas in Cartagena set out where the energy transition already pays off and where it still needs patience and investment.
At TOC Americas in Cartagena, panellists from Port Everglades, JAXPORT, APM Terminals Mobile, TRANSFERPORT and BOXBAY set out how ports, roads, rail and storage technology connect cargo to inland markets.
White, who leads intermodal for North America at APM Terminals in Mobile, Alabama, said Gulf terminals are positioned to capture growing Asia-to-Latin America trade and US energy exports.
Denson White, Intermodal North America lead for APM Terminals, told TOC Americas that Mobile, Alabama’s rail reach and a shift towards inland distribution are reshaping how Gulf cargo moves across the Americas.
COMPAS’s Víctor Carrasco and Peru’s port authority chief Jorge Chávez told delegates at TOC Americas that connectivity and efficiency, not extra concrete, decide whether a terminal becomes a true trade node.
From Hanseatic Global Terminals to Peru’s port authority, four panellists at TOC Americas agreed that a terminal’s value is decided by the roads, rail and systems beyond its gates.
Paulo Ruy of Hanseatic Global Terminals says shifting governments have stalled Brazil’s Santos expansion and clouded Mexican port options, even as Latin American terminals run out of capacity.
Tom van Eynde of terminal operator TiL Group told TOC Americas in Cartagena that sudden tariff announcements, not tariff levels themselves, trigger costly cargo surges terminals cannot absorb.
Tom van Eynde of TiL Group told TOC Americas the operator is investing more aggressively than ever, leaning on top customer MSC to offset political risk, and building ahead of regulation in Baltimore.
Handed a hypothetical unlimited budget to crisis-proof their companies, six logistics and retail leaders at TOC Americas in Cartagena split almost evenly between infrastructure and software, then split again over prediction versus reaction.
From AliExpress to Hapag-Lloyd, GEODIS, CargOK, Falabella and Dollar City, panellists at TOC Americas in Cartagena debated whether artificial intelligence, insurance, infrastructure or staff training offers the best defence against disruption.
Alfonso Salas of Grupo Puerto de Cartagena (GPC) told delegates at TOC Americas 2026 in Cartagena that a port's value lies in connectivity, not container volume alone.
Grupo Puerto de Cartagena expects to move a little more than 5 million containers this year, as Colombia’s port modernisation decree sets investment conditions alongside new performance commitments, Alfonso Salas said.
From Drewry’s volume data to PSA’s focus on culture, five panellists at TOC Americas in Cartagena set out contrasting takes on a trade outlook that keeps shifting beneath them.
Henry Ziemer of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies warned that Washington’s expectations for US ownership of Panama’s next port tenders could do more damage than the financing costs worrying the panel.
Giovanni Benedetti of Grupo Puerto de Cartagena told TOC Americas that tariff-driven swings in Brazilian transhipment and Colombian exports to Ecuador reversed within weeks, leaving no lasting pattern.
Nicolas Romero, head of Latin America for Pacific International Lines (PIL), told TOC Americas that disruption has become shipping's new normal, and that flexible fleets and terminals will profit from it.
At TOC Americas in Cartagena, GPC’s commercial and talent chiefs argued that ports will compete on artificial intelligence and people, not cranes, citing a 27% reliability figure and a three-pillar response to disruption.