Whole Trade Processing Approach to Be Revisited in Customs Framework Effort, Overacker Says

CBP would like to use the ongoing discussion around the 21st century customs framework (see 1903040023) as a way to review some of the most basic ways the agency looks at trade, said Thomas Overacker, CBP executive director, Cargo and Conveyance Security on June 28 while at the American Association of Exporters and Importers Annual Conference in Washington. Hypotheticals mentioned by CBP officials as discussion starters included a rewrite of the entry language in 19 CFR 141 and whether drawback remains a necessary program.

Many questions are still being worked through, but "we just feel that the time is right now to come together and discuss where we want to make changes and will it become a legislative package," said John Leonard, executive director of the CBP Office of Trade, Policy and Programs. "It very likely could, but we want to make sure it's right." The product of the discussions likely will have "a huge impact once this thing is enacted, or whatever shape it forms, on how we assess risk of stuff coming in, of how that process will be processed."

One area of frequent discussion is whether there's a way "to help CBP assess that risk earlier in the supply chain so that I can get an immediate release," Overacker said. "Not just upon arrival, I mean at departure," he said. That question is important for "just-in-time" shipments and so that the companies are able to segment out any goods that are seen as higher risk, he said. It's also time for CBP to look at "what we're actually collecting and why and what we really need to collect and when," Overacker said. Although there's been other updates, such as with "simplified entry," it may be time for CBP to "rethink the whole process altogether," he said.

The coming Type 86 entry and another e-commerce pilot (see 1906270021) should help CBP better understand "some of these nontraditional actors in the supply chain," Leonard said. Within e-commerce, there's been general shift in the liability that may not make total sense, Overacker said. For example, when a customer orders a shirt though an online vendor, the customer then becomes legally responsible for the import compliance requirements, but if that same shirt is imported and sold by a retailer, the retailer is responsible, Overacker said. "Somehow we have to get to where that person that's facilitating that sale has some level of legal responsibility and it doesn't just fall on the e-commerce consumer, as our current regulatory framework would do," he said.