CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP recently posted question and answers from its Virtual Trade Week conference. The documents include information on forced labor (see 2107210040), e-commerce (see 2107210045), the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program (see 2107220054), the Global Business Identifier Initiative (see 2107230034), export modernization and the 21st Century Customs Framework (see 2107200067).
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CBP plans to issue a Federal Register notice in coming months that will officially end the Importer Self-Assessment program and fully launch the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism Trade Compliance program, said Amy Hatfield, a trade compliance program manager within the CTPAT office. The notice will also end the pilot version of CTPAT Trade Compliance, said Hatfield, speaking virtually Aug. 4 during a CBP Detroit Trade Week event. Currently, the Trade Compliance program membership is made up only of former ISA members, she said.
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As CBP moves toward implementation of a forced labor component in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism Trade Compliance program, still hoped for by the end of September (see 2106250045), the agency is working to flesh out what will be required from participants and what benefits will be provided to them. As it stands now, CBP looks set to add a section on social compliance programs related to forced labor to the annual notification letters that are already required of the 300 some current CTPAT Trade Compliance participants, said Carmen Perez, branch chief of the Trade Compliance program at CBP.
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The ongoing northern border travel ban seems to be leading to a growth in drug seizures found within cargo shipments, said Manuel Garza, Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program director in CBP's Office of Field Operations. “On a normal given year, I could probably count five seizures on the northern border with drugs,” he told the American Association of Exporters and Importers conference June 29. “This past year during COVID, we're probably up to 100, if not more than that,” he said.
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Although CBP was not able to meet its goal of adding forced labor to the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program in 2020, as it had planned (see 2007130041), the agency is trying to do so before Sept. 30 this year, according to Valarie Neuhart, CBP deputy executive director in the office of trade relations. Neuhart, who was speaking to a supply chain meeting on June 24, also said the agency will host industry days on the topic of forced labor the week of June 28 to allow people to see demonstrations of technologies that can trace products' country of origin, or can help firms trace goods through complex supply chains.