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.
ATLANTA -- CBP has created a “catalog” for operational and proposed benefits for its Trusted Trader pilot, CBP's Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism Director Elizabeth Schmelzinger said Dec. 6 during her agency’s East Coast Trade Symposium. She called the list a “real repository” that includes “benefits that have been proposed for a very long time that are awaiting either a chance for automation, funding for automation,” and benefits for which “there’s a required regulatory change to make that implementation happen, or a legislative change to make that implementation happen.”
House lawmakers used a fast-track procedural action to pass legislation reauthorizing the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism. The bill, which lawmakers had deemed uncontroversial enough to spare from the longer regular vote process, now moves to the Senate for consideration. The C-TPAT Reauthorization Act would authorize CBP to establish additional and updated security criteria, direct CBP to consider extending C-TPAT benefits to importers of non-containerized cargo and “non-asset-based” third-party logistics providers, and require an annual assessment of tangible benefits being realized by program participants (see 1710230036).
The House of Representatives is scheduled to consider legislation reauthorizing the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program on Oct. 23, according to a schedule of the day’s events sent by the office of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California. The bill would authorize CBP to establish additional and updated security criteria, direct CBP to consider extending C-TPAT benefits to importers of non-containerized cargo and “non-asset-based” third-party logistics providers, and require an annual assessment of tangible benefits being realized by program participants (see 1709070034). The House will also hold a vote on the International Narcotics Trafficking Emergency Response by Detecting Incoming Contraband with Technology (INTERDICT) Act, which would expand the use of chemical screening devices to detect narcotics arriving at U.S. ports shipped through international mail and express carriers (see 1709050035). The bills will be considered under suspension of the rules, which allows for quick approval of non-controversial legislation.