The full name is a mouthful. “2022 Trade Facilitation and Cargo Security Summit” The summit was – at its core – a three day, CBP-only trade show with the overwhelming number of presenters and panelists hailing from every corner of the agency and spanning their entire network from CBP headquarters in Washington to field offices in Florida, Texas and throughout California.
Unlike many other events that Alba attends where the audience is either cargo owners or our fellow logistics professionals, the COVID-limited crowd of 1,000 and online crowd of more than 1,800 didn’t have to worry about missing a single session. To the benefit of the attendees (and the fatiguing of the presenters), each of the four featured panels on Monday and Wednesday were repeated four times through the day plus a webcast version, meaning that each panel was presented five times. The later in the day, the more good natured the panelists who were – rightly – addled at having said the same thing so many times. It’s probably why many of the comments were pre-written and read both for consistency’s sake and for helping as the late afternoon hours rolled around.
From our point of view, the agency touched on a variety of topics, some of which are in their nascent stages and some around for a while, but the agency’s priority issues list was on display and we wanted to share with our Alba audience what we feel were the three biggest points which were repeatedly mentioned, leaving no doubt their importance to the agency.
21st Century Customs Framework (21CCF)
The last significant overhaul of the agency’s regulations came as part of the 1993 Modernization Act. Some of you may have started your careers before that hallmark event and some of you may not even be that old yet – we get it. The Mod Act passed at the same time as NAFTA. As we all know, NAFTA’s dead – USMCA is the trade program’s successor.
CBP has a multitude of reasons to want to move onward from the Mod Act, but one of their most significant and important is the use (and sharing) of data. They capture data from a bevy of entities – carriers, forwarders, customs brokers, express couriers and others, among whom there are non-traditional actors. The agency has also cited outdated and antiquated regulatory frameworks.
CBP’s vision, per agency attorney Gayle Kan, is to take today’s and tomorrow’s technologies and adapt them in a way that doesn’t stop CBP from moving forward and innovating the import process.
Working closely with COAC, CBP wants buy-in and support from the private sector, especially in key areas like de minimis shipments where the agency is on track to process more than a billion Section 321 and Type 86 entries this fiscal year.
E-Commerce:
CBP is actively operating two separate pilots for entries valued under $800 – one pilot is for Section 321’s, the second for Type 86 entries which allow for the additional submission of PGA admissibility data to secure release. The agency has acknowledged that they know what they don’t know and are actively trying to grow these two pilots beyond the companies in them now to get even more data to better understand the process.
CBP’s James Moore shared with the session audience that at the outset, data that was being provided to inspectors from marketplaces included not just a product description, but a URL. Humorously (or perhaps not), inspectors couldn’t use their CBP-issued computers to view the product URLs and instead were using their own personal devices to see products to determine admissibility.
They know the volumes are not subsiding, and acknowledge they “cannot enforce their way out of e-commerce.”
Predictions
Tuesday was the day that CBP featured their senior leaders, and in a speed round at the end of a panel moderated by Valarie Neuhart, Deputy Executive Director of CBP’s Office of Trade Relations, the four participants offered:
- The future of touchless travel is not one of passport books but digital, biometric travel credentials.
- For trade, the future is the movement of legitimate goods, ethically made and moved quickly through the production and transportation lifecycle.
- CBP’s not just interested in purchasing technology, but it’s the proper handling of the data (they have actually hired a Chief Data Officer), moving it where it needs to be used and properly securing it.
- Seamless collaboration with the trade community using the best available technology on the market.
