CBP to Publish ACE Downtime Document This Month; NAFTA/CAFTA Processes Called 'Best Candidate' for Blockchain Pilot
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."
CBP and select members of the trade community discussed in recent months the path forward for an upcoming pilot using blockchain technologies, the agency said in another report. Among candidates for the blockchain pilot (see 1711080023) were NAFTA and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) paper certifications of origin processes; carnet paper processes; and partner government agency licenses, certifications and permits, CBP said in the Emerging Technologies Working Group report. The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate hosted an "invitation-only" blockchain event in October that included a full day on trade discussions, CBP said.
Since the DHS event, CBP has discussed the issue further and "NAFTA/CAFTA was identified as the best candidate for a blockchain pilot," the agency said. Blockchain could help with the "automation of paper process tied to certification of origin to qualify for free trade agreements," CBP said. The "current process is to validate post-audit" and is "time consuming and cumbersome." There seems to be an "opportunity among the trade community to leverage blockchain either to track/validate goods in the supply chain to support due diligence, or potentially to support verifiable claims to CBP for audit/compliance purposes," the agency said.
CBP is also moving closer to a pilot of supplemental antidumping and countervailing duty bonding (see 1711160041), CBP said in the Bond Work Group report. "CBP is on track for finalizing the initial [formula] for AD/CVD and starting the pilot in late April," it said. The pilot is in response to multiple developments, including an executive order on the subject (see 1704030033), it said. "Based on lessons learned from that pilot, CBP will develop guidance for the [sureties] and CBP on using the bond formula and move forward toward implementation," it said.
CBP has posted the following documents for the Feb. 28 COAC meeting:
One U.S. Government at the Border
- 1 USG Outages Working Group (here)
Exports
- Exports COAC Manifest Working Group Update (here)
- Exports COAC Post Departure Filing Working Group (here)
Global Supply Chain
- GSC Emerging Technologies Working Group (here)
- Global Supply Chain COAC Pipeline Working Group Update (here)
Trade Enforcement and Revenue Collection
- TERC AD/CVD February 2018 (here)
- TERC Forced Labor Work Group Paper (here)
- TERC Issue Paper Risk Based Bonding (here)
- TERC Intellectual Property Rights Issue Paper (here)
Trade Modernization
- E-Commerce Working Group External Issue Paper (here)
- Section 321 Issue Paper (here)
- International Engagement and Trade Facilitation (here)
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