Holland & Knight added Seth Stodder, a former Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for border, immigration and trade policy, to the international trade practice, the firm said in a news release. Most recently, Stodder was CEO of consultancy Palindrome Strategies. Stodder also was head of policy at CBP during the Bush administration and helped develop the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program, the law firm said.
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- CBP is considering offering trusted trader benefits to those in the e-commerce world as a way to improve compliance, said John Leonard, executive director-trade policy and programs at CBP, during a May 2 panel discussion at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America's annual conference. The hope is to "incentivize all these new actors in this space to improve the platforms and marketplaces, etc., to be more compliant," he said. "Part of that could involve the Trusted Trader program" and the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program, he said. CBP "is looking at this very closely."
CBP compiled its mitigation guidelines for penalties related to advance electronic cargo information requirements in a new document. The new document largely follows information released by the agency in 2005 and amended in 2011. "The failure of an arriving carrier (vessel, air or rail) to be automated in the Automated Manifest System ('AMS') at all ports of entry in the United States, or the failure of an arriving carrier (vessel, air or rail) or of any authorized electronic transmitter to provide the required advance electronic cargo information in the time period and manner prescribed by [CBP] regulations may result in the delay or denial of a vessel carrier’s preliminary entry-permit/special license to unlade, an air carrier’s landing rights, a train carrier’s permission to proceed, and/or the assessment of any other applicable statutory penalty," CBP said.
The slew of trade remedies "changes everything" for importers, making programs like drawback and foreign-trade zones more valuable to companies that previously didn't need to consider such options, said Amie Ahanchian, KPMG managing director, Trade and Customs Services, during an April 16 KPMG webinar. Of the 1,333 tariff lines on the Section 301 list (see 1804040019), about 60 percent, or around 800 line items, are duty-free today, she said. That means "if you're importing these items, you may not have ever considered a customs planning strategy because there were no duties to mitigate in the current trade environment," she said.
CBP should engage with "a large group of industry" in a "public comment forum" before moving forward with new minimum security criteria (MSC) in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT), the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) said in a recommendation to CBP. The Trusted Trader Subcommittee made the recommendation during the Feb. 28 COAC meeting in Miami, the last meeting for this COAC. "Much larger outreach effort must be done for members of the CTPAT program, allowing them appropriate time for comment, revisions and implementation," the subcommittee said in a report. The MSC update has been underway for some time (see 1709070010).
CBP plans to issue procedures for ACE outages before the end of the month, the agency said in an Outages Working Group report released ahead of the Feb. 28 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) meeting in Miami. CBP will "publish the public downtime procedures document by the end of February," it said. Following some COAC recommendations in November, "CBP’s Office of Information and Technology (OIT) has assigned a development team to begin working on the recommended enhancements," it said. "Enhancements to the Dashboard will be implemented throughout calendar year 2018."
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) for CBP will next meet Feb. 28 in Miami, CBP said in a notice.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Dec. 4-8 in case they were missed.
CBP's deployment and full use of ACE capabilities offers the biggest chance to lessen regulation and related costs, Boeing and others said in comments to CBP. The comments came in response to a CBP solicitation for input on regulations seen as deserving elimination or changes (see 1709110004). "We believe that moving to a fully paperless environment and ensuring maximum utilization of the ACE Portal will be the one achievement that will have the most significant positive effect on streamlining and reducing regulations, and for that reason it should be the priority focus of a regulatory review," Boeing said.
ATLANTA -- Northern border trade with Canada could see some disruptions if Canada moves forward with its plans to legalize marijuana on July 1, said Todd Owen, executive assistant commissioner of CBP’s Office of Field Operations, at the East Coast Trade Symposium on Dec. 6. CBP will stop trucks at the border if there has been an indication of drug use or the presence of drugs in the vehicle, he said. “We are going to be stopping more trucks and more people at the border,” he said. Those who know the Northern border know already that “we don’t have a lot of room to do a lot of secondary inspections,” Owen said. “You need to be paying attention to this, because we are not going to be surging resources to the Northern border to allocate for this,” he said.