Smith Lauds CBP Work During Trying Trade Times, Says Agency Issuing 1,000 Bond Insufficiency Notices Per Month

CBP has responded to fast-moving developments in international trade with predictability and transparency, said Brenda Smith, CBP executive assistant commissioner-trade, while speaking May 16 at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event. With the Section 301 tariffs and other trade remedies, the agency has given the trade community the necessary information "as quickly as we can provide it," Smith said. "Just last week, in response to a setback in the ongoing U.S.-China trade talks, CBP responded rapidly to the 15 percent increase in China 301 duties. We consulted closely with USTR and the International Trade Commission to streamline the operational impact of the administration's policy goals, provided guidance to CBP field employees and the trade community and expedited programming changes" to ACE "to ensure that trade continued to flow."

The agency has gone through similar routines "twenty times in the last fifteen months," she said. "Since the first trade remedies were implemented in March of 2018, CBP has reviewed over 78,000 Section 232 product exclusion requests," Smith said. "We've enforced 162 new absolute quotas, 43 percent more than we were previously. We've met our ruling issuance benchmark of 30 days, despite receiving 46 percent more requests for rulings. And issued 1,000 bond insufficiency notices a month, up from 56 a month pre-remedy," she said. The agency has also collected about $24 billion in additional duties, she said.

The agency is also preparing to act on further developments in the negotiations with China and the updated NAFTA, among other things, she said. "Many of our current challenges have been both highly publicized and politicized," Smith said. A government shutdown, the Southern border migration crisis and the flurry of trade remedy orders have been among those challenges, she said.

Those challenges should be viewed as a "call to action" to work toward a customs framework that expects disruption and allows for speedy adaptation, she said. Smith said the agency will likely seek additional public comments on updating the customs framework. "Did you know there are over 400 ways to classify a shoe?" Smith said. "Is that really helpful in our current economy?" Trade groups should reach "consensus positions" on improving customs processing and reach out to CBP to discuss, she said. "It would be convenient for us to hide behind today's challenges and address only the emergent day-to-day needs of U.S. supply chains," but CBP also needs to work with industry toward a "regulatory and operational environment that supports free and fair trade."