COAC's Northern Triangle Working Group Needs More Commitment From US to Work, CBP Officials Say

CBP officials applauded the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee’s report on improving trade in the Northern Triangle but said the report’s recommendations won’t lead to change unless COAC receives more of a commitment from the U.S. government. “It must be consistent and sustainable,” Josephine Baiamonte, CBP’s executive director for the International Operations Division of the Office of International Affairs, said during an Aug. 21 COAC meeting in Buffalo, New York. “Those two things are the things that are missing right now.”

The report, recently released by COAC’s Rapid Response Subcommittee's Northern Triangle Working Group, listed several recommendations the U.S. can take to improve trade in the area, including better collaboration among the region’s customs agencies, training and aid from the U.S., and stricter trade enforcement (see 1908200063).

Although Baiamonte and Maya Kumar, CBP’s director of the Textile and Trade Agreements Division for the Office of Trade, said the report accurately captured problems in the region that hindered trade, they also said more needs to be done to enact change. “It needs to be more formalized,” Kumar said of the recommendations.

Baiamonte warned COAC that the recommendations need to be prioritized by the U.S. either through a mandate or perhaps an executive order from the president, similar to the order that established the Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa. “If that is not done, this will continue to be a fragmented effort,” Baiamonte said. “It cannot be trade alone, it must be government. It must be consistent, sustainable and it must be prioritized. Otherwise it will be very difficult to make it come true.”