April 2014
| Business World Magazine | 25
focusing on freight movement and interna-
tional trade.
As the administration seeks to double the
volume of U.S. exports shipped through its
ports and over its land borders, it needs to be
focused on how to do it. In the meantime,
countries like Brazil and Chile, which com-
pete against the U.S. in terms of agricultural
exports, are making huge transportation in-
frastructure investments that could make
their exports even more competitive.
What’s more, the U.S. population is fore-
cast to grow by about 100 million – a 30 per-
cent increase – before the middle of this cen-
tury, causing a huge increase in demand for
goods that must flow through its seaports.
While ports are planning for the future,
lawmakers in Washington haven’t kept
pace with the industry or our international
competitors. The federal government has
a unique constitutional responsibility to
maintain and improve the infrastructure
that enables the flow of commerce, but many
of roads, rails, bridges, tunnels and naviga-
tion channels connecting to seaports have
been neglected for too long.
