Nearshoring headlines focus on Mexico's land-border trade. The cargo that reaches Miami drayage moves through CAFTA-DR and Seaboard Marine's Caribbean network.
Why Most Nearshoring Volume Skips Miami
Trade press coverage of nearshoring points at Mexico first, and for good reason. Foreign direct investment into Mexican manufacturing hit roughly $41 billion in 2025 and another $23.6 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone. USMCA tariff advantages and Mexico's own Plan Mexico incentive program for manufacturers relocating from Asia drove that investment. A factory in Monterrey or Querétaro can put a finished good on a truck and have it crossing the Texas border in days, not weeks.
That volume never touches a Florida port. It moves overland through Laredo, Nuevo Laredo, and the other Texas and Arizona border crossings, then runs by rail or truck to distribution centers across the country. A drayage dispatcher in Doral or Medley can watch Mexico's nearshoring boom dominate every trade publication for a year and feel none of it, because the containers never arrive on a vessel at PortMiami or Port Everglades.
CAFTA-DR Apparel Sourcing and the Tariff Reversal
The nearshoring lane that reaches Miami by ship runs through Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic, the core apparel-manufacturing countries inside the CAFTA-DR trade agreement. In April 2025, a 10% reciprocal tariff hit CAFTA-DR apparel imports alongside goods from dozens of other trading partners, erasing part of the cost advantage that had been pulling U.S. apparel brands out of China and Vietnam.
That tariff didn't last. On November 13, 2025, the White House announced framework agreements with Guatemala and El Salvador restoring duty-free CAFTA-DR access and removing the reciprocal tariff for qualifying textile and apparel products. The American Apparel & Footwear Association pushed to extend the same terms to Honduras and the Dominican Republic, framing the move as reinforcement for an integrated regional supply chain that generates roughly $11.3 billion in two-way textile trade and supports more than 470,000 U.S. textile jobs.
Survey respondents confirm the shift in sourcing intent. Nearly 80% of U.S. fashion companies surveyed in 2026 said they plan to reduce China sourcing further through 2027, and apparel imports from countries outside Asia and the Western Hemisphere hit 14.1% in April 2026, up from 12.3% a year earlier. Apparel brands are building hybrid footprints across an average of 2.3 countries, splitting denim and structured pieces to Mexico under USMCA while routing cotton knit basics to Guatemala and Honduras under CAFTA-DR's yarn-forward rule of origin.
Seaboard Marine's Caribbean Basin Service Footprint
CAFTA-DR apparel moving by ocean needs a carrier, and Seaboard Marine carries more cargo through PortMiami than any other line. The company operates a nearly 70-acre private terminal at the port alongside over 200,000 square feet of warehouse space for consolidation and temporary storage, serving close to 40 ports across more than 20 countries in the Caribbean Basin, Central America, and South America.
Seaboard's 2026 service expansions line up with the apparel sourcing shift described above. The carrier added a weekly Savannah service in December 2025, enhanced its West Coast South America service to the U.S. Northeast in August 2026, and installed new mobile harbor cranes at its PortMiami terminal in January 2026 to handle growing container volume. None of these moves make headlines the way a Mexico FDI number does. Together they add up to the physical infrastructure absorbing CAFTA-DR nearshoring cargo as it arrives by ship rather than by truck.
- Seaboard Marine carries the largest single share of PortMiami container volume of any ocean carrier
- Nearly 70-acre private terminal plus 200,000+ square feet of consolidation warehouse space
- New mobile harbor cranes installed at PortMiami in January 2026 for added terminal capacity
- Weekly service additions in 2025-2026 reflect growing Caribbean Basin and Central America volume
What PortMiami's Channel Depth Means for Larger Nearshoring Volumes
PortMiami's 52-foot channel depth, compared to Port Everglades' 42 feet before its current Army Corps deepening project finishes, gives Miami an advantage for the larger vessels that Caribbean and Central American carriers deploy as CAFTA-DR volume grows. A carrier adding capacity on a Guatemala or Dominican Republic route can put a bigger ship on that service without the draft restrictions that would force light-loading at a shallower terminal.
Combined with Seaboard's existing terminal footprint and the POMTOC yard upgrade completing in late 2026, that channel depth lets PortMiami absorb a larger share of CAFTA-DR nearshoring volume than a port without equivalent draft or terminal capacity. Port Everglades still handles a meaningful share of Caribbean Basin trade, with carriers like Crowley Liner Services running weekly Guatemala and Honduras calls out of that port as well, so the two Miami-area ports split this volume rather than one capturing all of it.
What This Means for Drayage Demand in South Florida
A Miami drayage company sees CAFTA-DR nearshoring cargo as a steady, service-driven volume increase rather than a dramatic single event. Apparel brands shifting cotton knit basics to Guatemala and Honduras don't move an entire supply chain overnight, since textile audits in 2026 show nearshore defect rates running 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points above established Asian suppliers through the first few purchase orders before the gap closes. Brands scale CAFTA-DR volume up as factories prove out, which means drayage demand from this lane builds over quarters, not weeks.
One A Trucks tracks Seaboard Marine's weekly vessel schedule and Crowley's Port Everglades sailings, because CAFTA-DR apparel containers need consistent pickup windows that match a retailer's distribution timeline. An importer bringing in cotton knit goods from Honduras under a new CAFTA-DR sourcing arrangement needs the same reliable chassis availability and terminal gate access as an importer running an established Asia lane, and the tariff reversal in November 2025 removed one of the cost barriers that had been slowing this shift.
Bringing in CAFTA-DR or Caribbean Basin cargo through PortMiami or Port Everglades? Get a quote from One A Trucks. We run drayage on the Seaboard Marine and Crowley Liner Services schedules every week, whether or not a nearshoring headline is in the news that day.