Yes, it has ripple effects even beyond the Panama Canal shipping lanes, since a large segment of the merchant marine fleet is designed to be able to go through the Panama Canal, which makes Panamax a natural alternative to include in all sorts of port/harbor/channel design decisions.

Where Capesize has not had any single specific maximum dimensions, New Panamax is a similar ship dimension envelope to include as a design alternative.

Obviously, some shipping routes see Panamax vessels because that's a good fit to the freight markets served, and those are not going to switch to New Panamax just for bragging rights ... but where a route has seen Panamax vessels because of channel / harbour / port infrastructure sized to accommodate Panamax, then if some of those are raised to New Panamax in pursuit of other business, there may be lobbying to raise all size bottlenecks along that non-Capesize route to New Panamax dimensions.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.