Sea freight, in both FCL and LCL form, remains the primary way most cargo moves from China to the United States and Canada. FCL suits full-container volumes; LCL consolidation makes sense for smaller shipments that would otherwise pay for unused container space.
Air freight complements this for time-critical or high-value cargo — electronics components, seasonal retail goods with a hard launch date, and anything where the cost premium of air is smaller than the cost of missing a deadline.
Mexico deserves a separate mention. Project and specialized-container cargo bound for Mexico often needs equipment beyond a standard dry container — flat-rack or open-top containers for oversized items, for example. Transeasy has direct experience here: a recent project moved more than ten specialized containers to Mexico, coordinated equipment selection and documentation across the full multimodal journey.
Whichever mode fits your cargo, the planning questions are the same: what are you shipping, how much of it, and by when. Those three answers determine whether FCL, LCL, or air is the right starting point.