Laredo's trade value climbed 51% since 2018. The trucks did not keep pace, and they've fallen since 2024. The same trailers now haul far more valuable cargo, which is the corridor's growth story hiding in plain sight.
Everyone counts trucks. The trucks are a bad proxy now. Crossings at Laredo peaked in 2024 and slipped in 2025, but the value moving through kept climbing to $353.8 billion. That gap is the whole point: the corridor is densifying, not just expanding, as machinery and electronics displace lower-value freight on the same lanes. In inflation-adjusted terms the shift is larger still, up 48.5% per truck since 2018, which I work through in the Bridge post. Density, not volume, is what the next decade of the corridor looks like.
Both lines start at 100 in 2018. Trade value (green) climbs to 151; truck crossings (blue) reach 128 and turn down. The distance between them is the richer cargo.
Read the full dispatch on The Bridge → · Related: The Corridor dashboard
Trade value is nominal general imports plus domestic and foreign exports at the Laredo Customs District. Value per truck is nominal trade value divided by BTS truck crossings. The real (inflation-adjusted) per-truck figure cited in the desk's read is deflated with the import price index in the Bridge post.
Covarrubias, D. (2026). Same Trailer, Richer Cargo. Border Intelligence Desk, Daniel Covarrubias Labs. https://labs.drdanielcovarrubias.com/charts/richer-cargo.