Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador says the contentious Mayan Train project has an unlikely fan.
President Donald Trump may be obsessed with building the wall, but the Trump Administration may also financially back the train line project.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross apparently told López Obrador the US government is ‘willing to invest and to help build the Mayan Train and other infrastructure in the southeast.’
The U.S. has already earmarked $4.8 billion in aid to help boost southern Mexico’s economy, specifically to help raise living standards in impoverished areas which it hopes will ultimately reduce illegal immigration across the border.
The landmark Mayan train project will likely cost at least $7 billion and would link popular tourist resort areas like Cancun with less visited destinations across the Yucatan Peninsular.
It will be financed through public and private investment and expects a ridership of about 8,000 passengers a day.
A key aim of the project is to disperse tourism – and economic wealth – away from the crowded resorts of the Maya Riviera to less known tourist and archaeological sites
