Port Laredo was the nation’s top gateway for U.S. merchandise trade for the second consecutive month in April, suggesting stability might be returning to cross-border commerce, according to my analysis of data released this week.
Port Laredo had been the nation’s top port in 2023 and 2024 but fell behind Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and New York’s JFK International Airport in 2025 despite record trade for a fifth consecutive year.
Those two airports topped Port Laredo and all other U.S. airports, seaports and border crossings because of a surge of imports of AI-related computer equipment and GLP-1 drugs for O’Hare and gold exports and imports for JFK.
Their 2025 growth was so exceptional – O’Hare’s trade increased 31.52% and JFK’s 53.52% – it was the first year that not just one but two U.S. airports topped the ranking of all U.S. airports, seaports and border crossings.
But in April, for the second consecutive month, Port Laredo again ranked first, its trade totaling $34.16 billion. Its exports and imports both increased more than 20 percent compared to last April.
O’Hare was second at $33.92 billion on a 12.47% overall increase, while JFK was third at $29.10 billion, its trade down 17.14%.
My company, WorldCity, conducts business with Port Laredo and conducts or has conducted business with a number of other leading U.S. airports, seaports and border crossings, including No. 4 Port of Los Angeles, No. 6 Los Angeles International Airport, No. 11 Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, No. 14 Port of Corpus Christi, No. 15 Port of Savannah, No. 18 Atlanta International Airport, No. 20 Port of Virginia and a number of others.
In looking at the top three “ports,” what factors could alter this trajectory toward normalcy?
For O’Hare, it could be another surge of AI-infrastructure investment, perhaps unleashed by pending IPOs from Anthropic, which owns Claude; OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT; and Perplexity.
The broad computer category was the nation’s top import in 2025 for the first time, ahead of heavily-tariffed passenger vehicles, ubiquitous cell phones and oil.
For JFK, it could be more disruption, such as an escalation of warfare in the Middle East or Ukraine, or an attempt by China to take over Taiwan.
More disruption could lead the price of gold to soaring and shipments surging once again. Gold most commonly moves between JFK and Switzerland, where it is often processed and stored, and England, where London is a global market. 2025 was the best year for the price appreciation for gold in almost half a century.
Through the first four months of the year, JFK is actually the top-ranked port, ahead of Port Laredo by the slimmest of margins and O’Hare.
Year-to-date, JFK’s trade total was $126.85 billion, which, despite a decline of $43.91 billion, was slightly greater than the four-month total for Port Laredo of $126.42 billion, which was an $11.05 billion increase from the same time period in 2025.
Should the current trajectory continue, Port Laredo would overtake JFK on a YTD basis with the release of the May data.
Port Laredo’s 20.41% growth in its April exports to a record $12.45 billion was driven by increases of more than 100% in three of its top outbound shipments overwhelmingly headed across the border to Mexico:
No. 2-ranked computer parts, up 801.97% to $1.00 billion
No. 3-ranked natural gas, which travels via pipeline, up 289.60% to $453.70 million
No. 5-ranked computers, up 137.25% to $282.91 million
On the import side, the 20.59% growth to a record $21.70 billion was led by:
Computers, which overtook motor vehicle parts to rank No. 1 on 105.86% growth to $4.27 billion
No. 3-ranked commercial vehicles, up 42.41% to $1.05 billion
No. 4-ranked cell phones and related parts, up 68.50% to $1.01 billion
Overall, Port Laredo exports increased $2.11 billion while imports increased $3.71 billion. Of its total trade, 97.62% was with Mexico.
Port Laredo’s return to the top spot is about more than a single month’s performance. It’s about what it signals. After a year when extraordinary forces — from AI-driven demand to geopolitical shocks — reshaped the rankings in 2025, April hints at a rebalancing toward the fundamentals of U.S. trade.
Whether that holds will depend on forces largely beyond Laredo’s control: the pace of AI investment, the stability of global supply chains, and the geopolitical tensions that can quickly redirect high-value trade flows through airports rather than across borders via land.
