CBP plans to hold the 2019 Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT) Conference June 25 and 26, the agency said in an announcement. The agency will release an agenda when it opens registration this month, CBP said.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for May 6-10 in case they were missed.
CBP finished its update to the Minimum Security Criteria for the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program, the agency said in a news release. CTPAT members will be expected to implement the updated MSC "throughout the remainder of calendar year 2019 and validations on the new MSC will begin in early 2020," it said. An update to the MSC has been under discussion for multiple years (see 1709070010) and the agency began seeking industry input on the changes last summer (see 1807300011).
CBP plans to start moving officers from the Northern Border and seaports to help deal with the influx of migrants at the Southern Border, the agency said during an April 11 call. "The current plans call for pulling agents from airports starting April 14 as replacements for officers concluding their 30-day shifts," according to a National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America description of remarks by CBP officials. "On April 28, the agency intends to pull replacements from the Northern Border, as well. If a third wave of replacements is needed in May, the agency will tap ocean ports for officers to fill in for the 545 officers on duty. Assuming the manpower needs remain constant, the plan calls for pulling 245 officers from the Southern Border and 300 officers from other locations," the NCBFAA said.
President Donald Trump denied he said Mexico has a year to improve drug interdiction (see 1904040030), but, for the second day in a row, he suggested Mexico is improving its control of migration, so he won't need to close the border soon. "I don't think we'll ever have to close the border because the penalty of tariffs on cars coming into the United States from Mexico at 25 percent will be massive," Trump told White House reporters a few hours after he made the one-year remark, on April 4.
The regulatory and legal aspects of CBP's blockchain efforts will likely "ramp up" if the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee recommends moving forward based on the results of the proof of concept testing, said Vincent Annunziato, director of CBP’s Business Transformation and Innovation Division (BTID). At that point, the Office of Regulations and Rulings would have to get involved by reviewing requirements that weren't necessary during the test, which simulated the NAFTA and CAFTA certificates of origin process, he said during a recent interview.
CBP is seeking comments by May 20 on an existing information collection for applications for Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) and the Trusted Trader Program, it said in a notice. CBP proposes to extend the expiration date of this information collection by 60 days with no change to the information collected or to the estimated burden hours associated with the collection.
CBP plans to mostly pursue Importer Security Filing-5 requirements noncompliance through liquidated damage claims, said Craig Clark, CBP's director of the Border Security and Trade Compliance Division, during a March 15 webinar. Clark said this differs from the agency's enforcement approach for ISF-10. "The common sense approach with ISF-5 is kind of the flip side of the common sense approach with ISF-10," he said. During the webinar, Clark, along with Sandra Langford-Coty, director of operational development at A.N.Deringer, and Lisa Gelsomino, CEO of Avalon Risk Management, explored multiple scenarios and what would be required from an ISF perspective.
Elizabeth Schmelzinger, who oversaw the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism programs at CBP’s Office of Field Operations, has retired, a CBP spokesman said. The agenda for the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting on Feb. 27 lists Manny Garza as "Director, Office of Field Operations, CTPAT."
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) for CBP will next meet Feb. 27 in Washington, D.C., CBP said in a notice.