CBP Hoping New Export Manifest System Boosts 'Antiquated' Process, CBP Official Says

CBP hopes its Electronic Export Manifest system reduces costs and waiting times for U.S. exporters, who are being burdened by CBP’s “antiquated process for exports,” said Jim Swanson, director of CBP’s Cargo and Security Controls Division, at the agency’s Trade Symposium in Chicago on July 25.

During the conference, CBP released a draft of its business process document for EEM that includes a workflow diagram, a list of data that's required for EEM risk assessment and more (see 1907220037). Swanson said CBP recognizes that its export manifest system lags behind the import side, adding that the agency has “very few resources out there dedicated to exports.”

“We’re behind the times. We’re still using a rather antiquated process for exports,” Swanson said. “At the border we’re still using paper in a lot of cases.”

But Swanson said he hopes EEM helps modernize the agency’s export procedures “in terms of its expediency, the ability to transmit electronic information, the certainty of what's going to happen when it gets to the border.” EEM will help CBP “identify shipments as early as possible in the supply chain,” Swanson said.

“We’re trying to at least replicate the good parts of the import system,” Swanson said. “We want to give you the same kind of assurance in the export world so that we don’t run into that scenario where it gets to the border, or it gets to the airport, or it gets to the ocean terminal, and it gets stuck.”

Swanson said EEM will adopt portions of the same “progressive filling model” that is used for Air Cargo Advanced Screening (ACAS), which requires shippers to submit pre-arrival air cargo data to CBP “at the earliest point practicable and prior to loading the cargo onto aircraft destined to or transiting through the” U.S., according to CBP. But while ACAS is mainly used for national security purposes, Swanson said EEM is not adopting the filing system to focus solely on national security. “The goal is to not have people think this is ACAS. It’s not,” Swanson said. “This will be processing information to allow us to do our targeting screening and to expedite the movement of the cargo.”

Swanson said CBP plans to test out EEM on a “national basis as opposed to a port-by-port basis,” something the agency has “never done before.” He said the ultimate goal of the system is to help CBP communicate with exporters as early as possible in their transactions.

“We want to be able to tell you what we want so, in most cases, if all the documents are correct, you're going to get a thumbs-up message that says you’re good to go and you can move with some assurance to the border,” Swanson said.