TUCSON, Arizona -- CBP has made strides in improving its liquidation time frames for drawback claims, but the agency still has a hefty “inventory” of claims and could benefit from some ACE programming changes to make further progress, said Janelle Cray, chief of CBP’s drawback and revenue branch, at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference on May 4.
TUCSON, Arizona -- The Department of Homeland Security is working with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Retail Federation’s Jonathan Gold to “communicate” to the customs brokerage industry “different aspects of cybersecurity” to better prepare brokers to keep their data safe, Amy Strauss, senior director of the DHS Private Sector Office, said May 3 at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference. “Anyone that manages and owns large amounts of data might continue to be a target” for nefarious actors, Strauss said. “That means we need to do our due diligence to adjust and make sure all of our industry stakeholders have the resources they need to protect themselves.”
TUCSON, Arizona -- CBP will be issuing its guidance on the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act prior to the new law’s June 21 effective date, CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said in remarks at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference May 4. The guidance, which will “provide transparency to CBP’s operational approach,” will be out “very, very soon,” he said.
TUCSON, Arizona -- CBP is considering giving filers the option of using blockchain technology for entry filing as it develops ACE 2.0, Celeste Catano of E2open said May 4 at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference. Filers would have the choice between setting up a distributed ledger to talk to CBP’s distributed ledger, or use ABI calls to CBP’s system, she said.
TUCSON, Arizona -- As CBP develops its 21st Century Customs Framework, the role of the customs broker will change in ways that reflect the new era of economic competition and “national economic security” concerns, Brandon Lord, deputy executive director of CBP’s Office of Trade Policy and Programs, said May 3 at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference.
TUCSON, Arizona -- Upcoming ACE filing requirements for Fish and Wildlife Service regulated exports in ACE will likely be aligned with import filing requirements also in progress, FWS ACE Coordinator Rhyan Tompkins said May 2. The required data elements are the same for both imports and exports, which should lead to similar filing requirements, Tompkins said during an afternoon panel at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference. The agency is working through the message set with CBP, but in the meantime, exporters would likely find it useful to review the import ACE implementation guide for an indication of how the agency will handle exports.
TUCSON, Arizona -- Despite initial concerns around national permits that focused on the devaluation of the customs broker license and reduced hiring of licensed brokers, the industry should be more concerned with new responsible supervision and control criteria included in CBP’s June 2020 proposed rule amending Part 111 to eliminate district permits (see 2006040037), according to panelists speaking at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference on May 3.
TUCSON, Arizona -- CBP’s development of its next generation ACE 2.0 system will require yet more implementation work from customs brokers just years after the development of the original ACE, but is necessary to avoid the pain of waiting too long to update a legacy system, as happened with the agency’s Automated Commercial System, said Brandon Lord, deputy executive director at CBP’s Office of Trade Policy & Programs.
TUCSON, Arizona -- The Fish and Wildlife Service hopes to finalize a proposed rule on its ACE filing requirements at the end of 2022, said Rhyan Tompkins, the agency’s ACE coordinator, at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference May 2. The rulemaking would mark one of the final steps in what has been a stop-and-go process to develop the agency’s partner government agency (PGA) message set, with a voluntary ACE filing pilot open to all filers since 2020. Once ACE filing is mandatory, the agency will continue to allow filing as either a limited dataset, with most data filed in the agency’s eDecs (electronic declarations) system and only a confirmation number provided in ACE, or the extended dataset comprising all the required data elements in ACE, Tompkins said.
TUCSON, Arizona -- The Consumer Product Safety Commission aims to begin a pilot program in 2023 with wide participation from importers to test “e-filing” of certificate of compliance data elements, with an eye toward making the PGA message set mandatory in 2025, said Sabrina Keller, deputy director of CPSC’s Office of Import Surveillance, during a panel of the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference May 2.