Devorah Karren, Director of International Affairs for the Government of Nuevo León and Promotion Director for Port Colombia-Laredo, joins host David Romero at the Port Laredo Global Trade Summit 2026 to describe how a crossing that was, in her words, “completely abandoned” just a few years ago became “the fastest, safest, most efficient port on the entire U.S.-Mexico border right now.”

Port Colombia-Laredo is a separate international bridge from the main Port Laredo crossing, about 20 miles away, run by the Nuevo León state government. Karren walks through the build-out behind that turnaround: a master plan for the port built from scratch, and the Carretera a la Gloria — a highway promised for more than 30 years and finally delivered last year, 108 kilometers of concrete connecting Monterrey directly to the port without ever leaving Nuevo León or crossing another state. The result, she says, was a 264% jump in passenger crossings, with the port now handling roughly 8,000 vehicles a day in both directions.

The growth isn’t slowing down. Last year, President Trump personally approved the expansion of Port Colombia, adding two new international bridges — one dedicated to northbound cargo, one to southbound — which will bring the crossing to 16 total lanes for passengers and freight combined. Security has scaled up to match: from 35 officers when this administration started to more than 750 combined state police and National Guard personnel today.

Karren also talks about what keeps a border this active running smoothly day to day: Nuevo León’s representative office in Laredo doesn’t have its own building — it works out of the City of Laredo’s offices, by design. Born and raised in Monterrey and now based in Laredo, she describes the relationship between the two cities as a symbiosis: two economies functioning as one system, even on opposite sides of an international border.

Note: the interview is conducted in Spanish; this description is written in English.

In this episode

•      How Port Colombia went from “completely abandoned” to one of the fastest-growing crossings on the border

•      The governor’s master plan to build a full logistics city around the port — roads, boulevards, and signage, from scratch

•      Carretera a la Gloria: the 108km highway that took 30 years to deliver, and the 264% jump in passenger crossings it produced

•      Two new international bridges, approved last year, that will bring the crossing to 16 total lanes for cargo and passengers

•      Growing border security from 35 officers to more than 750 combined personnel

•      Why Nuevo León keeps its Laredo office inside City Hall, not a building of its own

•      The “symbiosis” between Monterrey and Laredo — two economies functioning as one system

About the guest

Devorah Karren serves as Director of International Affairs for the Government of Nuevo León and Promotion Director for Port Colombia-Laredo, the international bridge connecting Nuevo León with Laredo, Texas, roughly 20 miles from the main Port Laredo crossing. Born and raised in Monterrey, she now lives and works in Laredo, representing Nuevo León’s interests on the U.S. side of the border.

Credits & links

Host: David Romero

Guest: Devorah Karren — Government of Nuevo León

Produced by: D111 FILMS U.S.A., in partnership with Port Laredo, driven by Brennan & Company

Recorded at: Port Laredo Global Trade Summit 2026, Laredo, Texas

Full episode (YouTube): https://youtu.be/apvp2OV6cB0

Contact: D111 FILMS U.S.A. · David Romero · (956) 256-4653 · [email protected]

2025 fue el ano con mas comercio internacional en toda la historia de la humanidad. Marc Canal se dedica a explicar por que.

Como Senior Fellow del McKinsey Global Institute, el think tank de McKinsey con sede en Barcelona, Marc lidera investigacion sobre los grandes cambios macro del mundo: geopolitica, tecnologia y demografia. Es coautor del libro "A Century of Plenty: A Story of Progress for Generations to Come."

Nos sentamos con el en Laredo, Texas - North America's Leading Trade Gateway, con mas de $353B+ en comercio cada ano - durante el Global Trade Summit 2026, para hablar de por que estamos, segun el, en un "cambio de era" comparable a la posguerra o la caida del Muro de Berlin.

En este episodio:

• Por que 2025 fue el ano con mas comercio internacional en toda la historia, a pesar de los aranceles
• Como McKinsey mide la "distancia geopolitica" entre paises usando los patrones de voto en la ONU
• Por que el comercio no esta desapareciendo, solo dividiendose en bloques mas cercanos geopoliticamente
• El rol fisico, no solo digital, que juega la innovacion actual, desde centros de datos hasta drones
• Por que atraer talento joven es uno de los grandes retos del sector logistico
• La vision detras de su libro, "A Century of Plenty"

SOBRE EL INVITADO

Marc Canal es Senior Fellow del McKinsey Global Institute, con sede en Barcelona. Lleva mas de una decada en McKinsey, y en los ultimos anos dirige investigacion sobre progreso global, productividad, demografia, habilidades, innovacion y tecnologia. Es coautor del libro "A Century of Plenty: A Story of Progress for Generations to Come." Estudio administracion de empresas en ESADE Barcelona, tiene una maestria en economia financiera de HEC Paris, y un MBA de London Business School.

SOBRE EL SHOW

THE PORTCAST es el centro de mando - donde las personas que mueven el comercio de Norteamerica vienen a hablar. Reportado desde Laredo, Texas, el puerto terrestre mas transitado de Estados Unidos.

THE PORTCAST - en colaboracion con Port Laredo, impulsado por Brennan & Company, producido por D111 FILMS U.S.A.

Brennan & Company ha movido carga a traves de esta frontera desde 1913 - una de las empresas de freight forwarding mas antiguas de Estados Unidos, y el Founding Sponsor detras de la voz de este corredor desde el primer dia. https://brennangroup.com/about-us

ANFITRION

David Romero - D111 FILMS U.S.A., Executive Producer

Si mueves carga, la manejas, la financias, o construyes las bodegas donde se guarda, este es el show que cubre tu corredor desde adentro. Sigue THE PORTCAST donde sea que escuches.

https://portlaredo.com
https://d111films.us
https://brennangroup.com/about-us

Trucks leaving Laredo reach all 48 continental states within 36 hours.

Not a week. A day and a half. New Hampshire, Delaware, Portland, Miami — the whole country, from one border city.

Jevin Hodge saw that on a live-action map and it changed how he understood this place. He is founder and CEO of Amplify Global Impact, and he led the strategic planning and community engagement work behind the Port Laredo Global Trade Summit — roughly 18 months of stakeholder analysis and hundreds of conversations with government, civic, business, and logistics leaders across the corridor.

What he found: the industries moving this trade were operating in silos. Everyone wanted a place to convene. Nobody had built one.

We sat down with him in Laredo, TX — North America's Leading Trade Gateway, moving $353B+ in trade every year — to talk about why this corridor's reach is global rather than regional, and why the people holding it up are almost never in the room when it gets discussed.

In this episode:

- The 36-hour map: how far freight leaving this port travels in a day and a half, and why almost nobody here realizes it
- Why Jevin argues Laredo's fingerprints are on the entire world — Canada, Mexico, and every state in between
- How the Summit was built: community audit, stakeholder analysis, and hundreds of one-on-one conversations before a single agenda item existed
- The customs broker who had never attended a conference in his life — and what his showing up revealed about who these events usually leave out
- "We do a really good job of listening with our mouth." His case for diagnosis before strategy
- Why the workers who keep this port running are absent from most trade conversations, and what changes when they aren't
- How being raised by a single mother — no car in the family until his sophomore year of high school — shaped a career built on connecting problem-havers with problem-solvers

ABOUT THE GUEST

Jevin Hodge is founder and CEO of Amplify Global Impact, where his work spans public affairs, strategic communications, strategic planning, and impact strategy. He led the community engagement and strategic planning work behind the Port Laredo Global Trade Summit. He also serves as president of a Head Start program serving 500 children with 120 educators, president of the East Valley NAACP, and is a former state lawmaker. Find him on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook at @JevinHodge.

ABOUT THE SHOW

THE PORTCAST is the command center — where the people moving North American trade come to talk. Reported from Laredo, Texas, the busiest land port in the United States.

THE PORTCAST | Season 1 — in partnership with Port Laredo, driven by Brennan & Company, produced by D111 FILMS U.S.A.

Brennan & Company has moved freight across this border since 1913 — one of the oldest freight forwarders in the United States, and the Founding Sponsor backing this corridor's voice from day one. https://brennangroup.com/about-us

HOSTS

Felipe Romero — Port Laredo, Director of Communications
David Romero — D111 FILMS U.S.A., Executive Producer

If you move freight, broker it, finance it, or build the institutions around it, this is the show that covers your corridor from inside it. Follow THE PORTCAST wherever you listen.

portlaredo.com
d111films.us
brennangroup.com

Most people picture one truck crossing the border. It's three — plus two customs brokers and
a stack of paperwork that grows every year.

Ryan Hammett leads the North America thought leadership team at C.H. Robinson, one of the
largest third-party logistics providers in the world, moving 35 million shipments a year for
more than 75,000 customers. He joined us at the Port Laredo Global Trade Summit 2026 in
Laredo, TX - North America's Leading Trade Gateway, moving $353B+ in trade every year — to
talk about the importance of investments for the future of cross-border freight, particularly
how AI is benefitting the flow of goods in the U.S. – Mexico trade corridor.

WHAT YOU'LL HEAR
— Why LEAN AI isn't theoretical: how C.H. Robinson layers AI across the operations that matter
  most, and why every second counts at 35 million shipments a year
— What it actually takes to move one shipment across this border — three trucks, two brokers,
  and paperwork that increases nearly every year
— Why logistics stays a relational business, and how human expertise gives AI the context that
  "looks right on paper" can miss
— The question Ryan is watching as a parent and an industry leader: how do you build critical
  thinking in people who have tools that will think for them?
— Why the trucks you pass on the highway are mostly family small businesses — 300,000+ for-hire
  carriers in the U.S. and nearly as many in Mexico
— How a civil engineer ended up running market intelligence, and why C.H. Robinson spent its
  first 80 years in produce

GUEST
Ryan Hammett — Director, Market Intelligence & Insights, C.H. Robinson. Nearly 14 years at the
company across technology implementation, business development, M&A integration, commercial
strategy, and chief of staff to the Chief Commercial Officer. He also leads C.H. Robinson's
research partnerships with universities studying supply chain and transportation. Find him on LinkedIn.

THE PORTCAST — in partnership with Port Laredo, driven by Brennan & Company, produced by
D111 FILMS U.S.A.

Brennan & Company has moved freight across this border since 1913 — one of the oldest freight
forwarders in the United States, and the Founding Sponsor backing this corridor's voice from
day one. brennangroup.com/about-us

HOSTS
Felipe Romero — Port Laredo, Director of Communications
David Romero — D111 FILMS U.S.A., Executive Producer

If you move freight, broker it, finance it, or build the warehouses it sits in — this is the
show that covers your corridor from inside it. Subscribe.

portlaredo.com
d111films.us
brennangroup.com/about-us

#PortLaredo #SupplyChain #CrossBorderTrade #Nearshoring #LeanAI

$353B+ in trade crosses through Laredo every year — more than the Port of Los Angeles.
Most of America can't tell you the name of the city it moves through.

THE PORTCAST — in partnership with Port Laredo, driven by Brennan & Company, produced by D111 FILMS U.S.A.

This is Episode 1. Before we sit down with the people who actually move North American trade, we're telling you who we are and why this show exists.

If you're watching this, there's a good chance you already live in this world. You clear entries at 4am. You chase a driver stuck at the bridge. You're deciding whether to move a plant to Monterrey. You're financing a warehouse on Mines Road. You've spent twenty years in this corridor and watched national coverage get it wrong every single time.

This show is for you.

Laredo is North America's Leading Trade Gateway — the busiest inland port on the continent — and until now, the corridor had no media voice of its own. The biggest stories about this place kept getting reported from somewhere else, by people who have never crossed the World Trade Bridge. THE PORTCAST is a broadcast-grade interview series reported from the actual #1 port: the command center where carriers, customs brokers, developers, manufacturers, and city leadership come to talk about cross-border logistics, nearshoring, and the future of US-Mexico trade.

WHAT YOU'LL HEAR
— Why a city most Americans have never heard of moves more freight than the Port of LA
— What the national conversation about the border consistently gets wrong
— Why a corridor this important has gone this long without its own media platform
— What we're building, who's coming on, and what you'll finally understand about this place
— A first look at Episode 2 with Marcos Benavides, CEO of Brennan & Company

NEXT EPISODE
Marcos Benavides — CEO, Brennan & Company. A Laredo institution since 1913, and the Founding Sponsor of this series. He takes the first seat.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SUBSCRIBE
New episodes drop weekly, with clips throughout the week. Hit subscribe and turn on notifications — this corridor moves fast and we're reporting it from inside.

Then do us one better: drop a comment telling us what you do in this corridor and what you want to hear discussed. We're building the guest list in public. If your question is good, we'll put it to the person who can actually answer it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

FOUNDING SPONSOR — BRENNAN & COMPANY
Customs brokerage, freight forwarding, warehousing and logistics in Laredo since 1913. The reason this show launched on day one instead of someday.
Website → brennangroup.com
Instagram → instagram.com/brennancompany
LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/brennanco
Facebook → facebook.com/brennan1913

PORT LAREDO
Website → portlaredo.com
LinkedIn → linkedin.com/company/portlaredo
Facebook → facebook.com/portlaredo

D111 FILMS U.S.A.
Website → d111films.us
Instagram → instagram.com/d111filmsusa
YouTube → youtube.com/@D111FILMS
Facebook → facebook.com/D111FILMSUS

HOSTS
Felipe Romero — Port Laredo, Communications & Marketing Executive
David Romero — D111 FILMS U.S.A., Executive Producer

Filmed in Laredo, Texas. Broadcast-grade production by D111 FILMS U.S.A.

#PortLaredo #TradeCorridor #Nearshoring #SupplyChain #USMexicoTrade

His company has moved freight across this border since 1913. Marcos Benavides, CEO of Brennan and Company, sits down with THE PORTCAST — live from the Port Laredo Global Trade Summit 2026 — to talk about what really happens at North America's Leading Trade Gateway.

Laredo just became the #1 port in America, moving $353B+ in trade a year — and most people have never heard the name. This is the corridor's story, told from the actual port by the people who've spent generations moving it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
FOUNDING SPONSOR — BRENNAN AND COMPANY
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE PORTCAST is proudly driven by Brennan and Company — Founding Sponsor of the launch series. Founded in Laredo in 1913, Brennan and Company is a trusted leader in cross-border logistics, freight forwarding, and customs brokerage between the U.S. and Mexico — more than a century moving the corridor. Our thanks to Marcos and the entire Brennan team for backing the corridor's voice from day one.

🔗 Learn more: https://www.brennangroup.com/about-us/
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brennanco/

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PORT LAREDO
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
North America's Leading Trade Gateway.

🔗 Web: https://portlaredo.com/
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/portlared...
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/portlaredo/
🔗 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/portlaredo

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PRODUCED BY D111 FILMS USA
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Broadcast-grade storytelling for the businesses moving North America. THE PORTCAST is a D111 Films USA production.

🔗 YouTube:    / @d111films 
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/d111filmsusa/
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-romero-7...
🔗 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@d111filmsusa
🔗 Web: d111films.us

📩 For inquiries, send us an email: [email protected]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ABOUT THE PORTCAST
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE PORTCAST is the media voice of Port Laredo — North America's Leading Trade Gateway. Broadcast-grade conversations with the carriers, brokers, port officials, and decision-makers moving North American trade. Hosted by Felipe Romero & David Romero.

#ThePortcast #PortLaredo #Laredo #TradeNews #SupplyChain #NorthAmericanTrade #Nearshoring #Logistics #BrennanAndCompany #CustomsBrokerage #Podcast