Border congestion at U.S.-Mexican overland ports of entry is causing billions of dollars of bilateral commercial loss on an annual basis, said witnesses at a Dec. 9 House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere field hearing titled “Improving Security and Facilitating Commerce with Mexico at America’s Southern Border.” Subcommittee lawmakers held the hearing in Tucson, Ariz. Witnesses said better CBP staffing and expanded trusted trader programs would improve the processing of trade between the two countries.
CBP posted documents related to phase two of its Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Cargo Release test. Scheduled to begin on Jan. 4 as part of ACE Deployment B, phase two will expand the Cargo Release test to the ocean and rail environments. CBP posted updates to two ACE Automated Broker Interface (ABI) CATAIR chapters related to the test. The agency in November expanded eligibility for the pilot, which was formerly known as Simplified Entry, by no longer requiring customs brokers and importer self-filers have Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) status (see 13110115).
Kone Inc. said it joined CBP's Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, after evaluation of its international supply chain security measures. The result will be reduced inspection time for imports, and a customs account manager for supply chain security, training and information sharing, it said.
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Mexico’s recently-passed tax and customs law reform won’t have much direct effect on customs clearance, but it will wreak havoc on the balance sheets of many maquiladora factories along the border, said several Mexican customs and tax lawyers. The reform, which cleared its last hurdle in the Mexican senate Oct. 31, will introduce electronic audits, new self-disclosure provisions, and minor changes to the Mexican customs brokerage regime, the lawyers said. The law’s biggest impact on trade, however, will be from increased taxation of maquiladoras -- the bonded manufacturing facilities along the U.S.-Mexico border that produce goods for export -- through the imposition of a value added tax on temporary imports and the end of tax breaks.
Nearly one-third of exporters have lost sales because of U.S. export regulations, according to the CBP Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC) 2013 Export Survey (here). COAC members discussed the survey, the first of its kind, at a meeting on Nov. 15 in Washington, D.C. Two of the main takeaways from the survey were the impact of export regulations on exporters and freight forwarders and the high cost of exports held at ports. One way the government could mitigate these negative outcomes is through flexible programs that target risk based on industry sector, said CBP’s Dan Baldwin.
CBP plans to publish an official notice in coming weeks that will begin a pilot program that combines the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) and the Importer Self Assessment (ISA) programs, said Acting Commissioner Tom Winkowski during the CBP Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC) meeting on Nov. 15. The COAC Trusted Trader subcommittee is reviewing and will provide feedback on a "high level overview" of the coming Federal Register notice, said a report on the program's process from Valerie Neuhart, director of Industry and Account Management at CBP (here).
Cargo processing delays and exams continued to be the largest challenge faced by importers and brokers, according to the second annual trade efficiency survey, which was released Nov. 8 by CBP. The survey, completed in July by the Advisory Committee On Commercial Operations (COAC), is meant to be a look at CBP's trade facilitation efforts and success at lowering costs of compliance. The retroactive system of antidumping/countervailing duty orders seems to have a disproportionate effect on the trade industry considering the amount of discussion and controversy the issue creates, the survey said. The survey was among a large set of COAC materials released by CBP (see 13111227).
CBP posted its draft agenda and 23 other documents for the upcoming Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of Customs and Border Protection (COAC) meeting on Nov. 15, which include the results of the 2013 trade efficiency survey, draft recommendations, and other documents on trade modernization, the global supply chain, trade enforcement and other topics. The draft agenda is (here). The trade survey (here) will be summarized in more detail in a future issue of ITT.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Nov. 4-8 in case they were missed.