The most impressive of the Panama Canal related expansion works was the project by PANYNJ in New York to raise the roadway of an existing arch bridge from within, and without interrupting traffic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonne_Bridge

This kind of gives the lie to the "The US can't build anything anymore" - we do build things but we have all sorts of restrictions we wouldn't have operated under a hundred years ago.

Back then we would have just built a whole new bridge somewhere nearby and then probably detonated the old one.

Nobody says that the US literally cant build anything anymore. The sentiment, backed by data, is that it is vastly more expensive and slower to build than in the past. This makes it hard to justify attempting a project at all.

This analysis [1] shows that building tunnels in the US costs 10X more than in Norway, and 3X the average for the countries studied. Obviously, this means that with the same government budget, you get 10% the infrastructure than a country like Norway. However, this also means the return on investment needs to be 10X higher to justify starting the project at all!

This trend holds true for most types of building projects in the US.

https://projectdelivery.enotrans.org/international/

Just to make it worse, often the things we are talking about are areas where network effects matter so the more you build the better the return on investment. Or in our case because we can afford to build so little our return on investment will be much less than it could be if we build more.

Most of the reports I've seen site a few factors:

Availability of cheap skilled labor. Europe often sources it's cheap engineers and Trades workers from the East.

Inefficient regulatory Frameworks such as mandated workers to do nothing and an onerous environmental monitoring.

Political dysfunction and gridlock. Projects are often poorly conceived and continually change their design and intent over the course of a project.

Some of these might be considered Network effects I guess. If you don't build infrastructure, you don't have a healthy market for workers and companies with expertise

Remember that US prices include health insurance, I’m not sure the EU ones do (for state-provided healthcare). I’m not sure how the account labor costs.

I don't think that's true. I think the costs are top line, before corporate and individual taxes, which would include any cost which go to socialized medicine in Europe.

As a separate question, I don't know that the European socialized Healthcare Services are paying for the migrant workers from Eastern countries that perform the work

I live in New Orleans along the river - some of the largest ships I’ve seen are branded with “Chiquita” and “Dole”. It’s hilariously fascinating to watch literal tons of bananas gently float by.

If you want an additional layer of humor, read The Fish that Ate the Whale. I believe there is still a 'United Fruit' building somewhere in New Orleans.

Related I also gotta recommend "Uncommon Carriers" by John McPhee. It's got a chapter that follows a barge operator on the Illinois river that's pretty great.