The Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (), abbreviated as CIIT, is a trade and transit route in Southern Mexico, under the control of the Mexican Secretariat of the Navy, which connects the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans through a railway system, the Railway of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec), for both cargo and passengers, crossing through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The project includes the modernization and expansion of local seaports, particularly the ports of Salina Cruz (Oaxaca) and Coatzacoalcos (Veracruz), and of the and the . It plans to attract private investors through the creation of 10 industrial parks in the isthmus area, and two parks in Chiapas. The project aims to develop the economy and industry of the Mexican South through encouraging economic investment, both national and international, and facilitating commerce and transportation of goods internationally.
Initiated under the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, analysts widely regard it as his most important project, as it has the potential to offer a long-term boost to the Mexican economy and develop the industry and economy of the South, which has been one of the poorest regions of the country for decades. Experts associated with the project reported that it had the potential to be an alternative "cheaper and faster than the Panama Canal."
The project consists of the rehabilitation of the Tehuantepec Railway, which was completed during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz in 1907, and 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. It also will modernize the ports of Salina Cruz, which opens to the Pacific Ocean, and Coatzacoalcos, to the Atlantic. As part of the project, 10 industrial parks will be built in the area surrounding the railway to encourage economic investment and industrial development in the region.
On 18 September 2023, the director of the CIIT at the time, Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles, announced that the Corridor's freight services on the Coatzacoalcos-Salina Cruz line (Line Z) officially began "from this very moment", and that the Coatzacoalcos-Palenque line (Line FA) began that same month. Line Z was officially opened for passengers on December 22, but cargo operations were delayed.
History
Background Plans to connect these two oceans through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec had existed since the Colonial period in the 16th century, with plans to build a canal or highway in the site being considered, but never successfully executed. As early as the first half of that century, during the early years of the existence of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the Spanish colony which is now Mexico, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés had already expressed his interest in creating communication between the two oceans in his letters to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, though this doesn't necessarily mean he conceived the idea of using the isthmus for this purpose. Due to the short distance between the two oceans in this area, the potential for the creation of such a project had been attractive to various global powers, including Spain, Britain, France, the Netherlands and finally the United States, as it would have saved cost and time. During the 19th century, when the Cape Horn route was the only seaway to the other side of the Americas, a canal would have reduced the risk to lives and produce: cargo ships were frequently lost around the Horn.
Alexander von Humboldt wrote in his Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, published in 1811, that the Isthmus of Tehuantepec was ideal for the creation of a canal to connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, due to the proximity between the ports of Vera Cruz and Tehuantepec, finding that the isthmus between them is the narrowest point between the two oceans in New Spain, and due to the proximity of the sources of the Coatzacoalcos and Chimalapa rivers, which discharge into the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean respectively. In the Essay, he mentioned multiple points in the Spanish Americas where the two oceans could be connected, including the Isthmus of Panama (belonging to the Viceroyalty of New Granada), remarking the fact that Vasco Núñez de Balboa successfully crossed it as early as 1513 (several years before Mexico was conquered by Spain), but that since then, at the time of the work's publication, no survey of the region nor the determination of its exact geographic position had been made, despite propositions being made since 1528 suggesting cutting that isthmus and joining the sources of local rivers.
He also remarked that Viceroy Juan Vicente de Güemes, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo, "has been for a longtime occupied" in the project of the creation of such a canal, and that land-based roads had been opened in the isthmus since the late 18th century, which created commercial communication between the two oceans; these were used, he remarked, to transport "the most precious of all known indigoes", the indigo from Guatemala (then a kingdom belonging to New Spain covering much of Central America, bordering Panama, though, according to Humboldt, it "depends very little on the viceroy of New Spain"), and cacao from Guayaquil (in modern-day Ecuador, then part of the Real Audiencia de Quito) to Acapulco and, from there, to Vera Cruz to be sent to Europe, so as to avoid the dangers and difficulties of navigation to and through Cape Horn. He remarked in the Essay the natural beauty and rich resources of the intendancy of Oaxaca, where Tehuantepec is located, and stated that the port "will become one day of great consequence when navigation in general, and especially the transport of the indigo of Guatimala, shall become more frequent by the Rio Guasacualco ."
In 1774, the Spanish authorities conducted geological research in the isthmus and issued a decree in 1814 allowing their colony to create a canal, but this would not occur until Mexico became an independent nation in 1821. Shortly after the independence, the Mexican government conducted its own surveys in the region, which resulted in the survey teams proposing the idea of the construction of a railroad, though this was not done due to Mexico's economic crisis of this period.
First attempts to connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec
Mexico had seen the commercial opportunities brought by railway systems since the early years of this industry. Just 7 years after the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened in England, Mexican President Anastasio Bustamante, on 22 August 1837, offered a concession to a man from Veracruz named Francisco de Arrillaga with the purpose of building a railway line between Mexico City and Veracruz. Under this concession, the railway was to be finished in 12 years and no other entity was allowed to build a railway between the two cities in 30 years. Though nothing would come about this concession, the Mexican government would continue to try to connect the ports of Veracruz with the country's capital and the Pacific Ocean.
The Garay concession and the New Orleans company
No serious attempts to construct the corridor would be made until 1842, during the provisional government of Antonio López de Santa Anna, when plans were made to build an interoceanic communication line in the isthmus (though no such line would be built). The task to achieve this was given to a businessman named José de Garay on March 1 of that year, who would be entitled to collect tolls for its usage for 50 years, paying 1/4 of the profits to the Mexican treasury, and to own uncultivated land stretching toward either side of the route, on which he could establish worker colonies. Garay was to conduct, at his own expense, a survey of the region within 18 months at most and the construction of the communication line had to begin within the following 10.
Though the idea of a railway was the one initially proposed and which would be ultimately executed, the lead engineer, the Italian-born Gaetano Moro, advocated for the creation of a ship canal with 150 locks instead, estimating the cost of its construction at the "woefully optimistic" sum of nearly £3.4 million pounds sterling (roughly US$13.5 million), using the Caledonian Canal, in Scotland, as a model. The "Canal of Tehuantepec" proposal "differs in no extraordinary degree [...] from similar works already executed in Great Britain, France, Holland, or the United States", as an account of the project published in 1846 stated. The proposal was to join the waters of the with the Chicapa River nearby, which discharge into and Laguna Superior respectively, using trenches, then deliver the waters to the site of Tarifa, and from there create the canal using the nearby rivers, such as the Tarifa, and Malatengo to the Gulf and the Chicapa to the Pacific. Garay was officially given the land the concession granted him in March 1843 after delivering the results of the survey, being secured by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Home Department José María Bocanegra. However, the concession would have expired in July 1844 since the project fell stagnant due to a lack of funds (despite getting access to free labor from three hundred convicts in October, also secured by Bocanegra), but Garay asked for a two-year long renewal a few days before the deadline.
Garay understood that solely with Mexican capital the project could not be fully funded, thus he traveled to London, England, in 1844 (where he also published the results of his survey) in hopes of finding investors. Though initially unsuccessful due to hostilities breaking out in May 1846 between Mexico and its northern neighbor, the United States, he managed to renew his grant for two years in November 1846, during the administration of José Mariano Salas, after ceding the lands and privilege to build the communication line in August to the Mexico City-based firm of Manning and Mackintosh; owned by Robert Manning and Ewing C. Mackintosh, representatives of British bondholder committees in Mexico; and to the London-based Schneider & Co., Schneider being an English consul involved in the exploitation of mahogany in the isthmus. This agreement was ratified in 1847. Throughout the year of 1848, however, Manning and Mackintosh, along with Garay, attempted to sell the concession to the British and United States governments, and then to private U.S. citizens after failing to do so. 18 months would pass without any notable advancements in the project, despite Manning insisting the contrary in an exposition before the government in January 1849.