Customs seeks to streamline cargo clearance processes

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is doubling down on its efforts to expedite the cargo clearance process in order to increase freight velocity at congested ports across the country.

Those efforts include more precise targeting of risky shipments in order to free up staff to expedite the clearance of legal cargo, stepped-up training of inspectors and trade specialists, and coordinating its cargo clearance processes with those of partner government agencies to help reduce port congestion.

“We want to make sure CBP is not a part of the congestion problem but rather is pushing cargo out faster,” Bruce Merley, CBP’s area port director for the San Francisco Bay region, told the Western Cargo Conference (Wesccon) of freight forwarders and customs brokers over the weekend in Rancho Mirage, California.

CBP continues to enlist the cooperation of customs brokers in its cargo clearance activities, an effort that has been under way since the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) was formed in 2001 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The goal of C-TPAT is to help CBP leverage its limited staff resources by designating and vetting trusted trade partners, including customs brokers and importers, who share the data needed to help CBP focus on shipments that pose a higher level of risk.

“There’s a shared interest here,” said Richard DiNucci, CBP’s director of field operations for Northern California. By working closer with its trusted trade partners, Customs’ trade specialists and inspectors are able to process today’s record import volumes without having to significantly increase its staffing, while customs brokers and shippers benefit from more rapid clearance of legitimate shipments, thereby helping to reduce congestion at marine terminals, he said.

At the same time, CBP is increasing its hiring and training of trade specialists to target risky shipments, DiNucci said.

Near the top of the Biden administration’s current trade agenda is to target and intercept merchandise manufactured overseas by forced labor.

“It’s the biggest enforcement issue out there. If something is made with forced labor, it should not be imported into the US,” said John Leonard, deputy executive assistant commissioner in the CBP Office of Trade.

At the operational level, however, enforcing the forced labor initiative can slow down the clearance of legitimate merchandise coming from countries such as China and Malaysia. CBP is working with importers and customs brokers to share information on country of origin, exporter, and consignee to streamline the cargo clearance process so it does not become overly burdensome, Leonard said.

While CBP is the lead federal agency in charge of cargo clearance, it also works with partner government agencies charged with enforcing statutes governing imports of those products, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, and US Department of Agriculture.

By cooperating with CBP, FDA is leveraging its staff and resources to better target imports of adulterated and mislabeled food and medical products to zero in on the overseas exporters, said Dan Solis, assistant commissioner of import operations at FDA. The agency’s efforts to expedite the release of crucial COVID-19 medical products while intercepting fraudulent treatments and test kits that began last year continues to be ramped up, Solis said.

At the seaport level, CBP is considering expanding its hours of operation to utilize so-called Vacis systems — large-scale, low-dose X-ray machines — to inspect containers for illegal narcotics. CBP is also considering requests from importers and customs brokers to open additional central examination stations (CES) for the full devanning of containers, Merley said.