COAC Success Flows From Spirit of Collaboration, Say Officials

“The truth is, if you go to most parts of the world, it’s impossible to have this number of people together with a strong commitment coming from an agency like U.S. customs, and the full participation of the community,” said Elaine Dezenski of the World Economic Forum. “This is not something that should be taken for granted,” she said. “There are some great lessons I think can be shared with the rest of the world.”

The success of public-private partnerships like COAC starts with the willingness of government officials to subject themselves to criticism, said Chris Koch, president of the World Shipping Council, who previously sat on COAC. “The government needs to recognize the need and the value of this, and to support it and be willing to be open,” he said. Koch related a story about a group of foreigners that attended a recent COAC meeting. They “were so completely taken aback by the fact that, in a public session, industry could stand up and challenge CBP staff at a meeting.” They were “even more blown over that [CBP] Commissioner Winkowski could then follow up and challenge his own staff in front of the public,” said Koch. “This was unheard of in this person’s country; that could not happen,” he said. “The culture has to start at the top.”

At the same time, a successful partnership requires a collaborative spirit from the trade as well, said Ted Sherman of the Target Corporation, who is current co-chair of COAC. “What COAC is not is that it’s not the airing of grievances committee,” he said. “I guess any of us any time could stand up in the public meeting and go on some crazy diatribe, but I’m not sure how that would impact the partnership and our working relationship with CBP,” said Sherman. “We have a good relationship, and we just don’t need to do that kind of thing.”

That doesn’t mean the trade should refrain from criticism, said Sherman. For example, in COAC’s most recent meeting, the trusted trader subcommittee told CBP that it should be given the chance to vet the results of any trusted trader program pilot before it is finalized. “We didn’t at the time feel that the direction CBP was headed in with trusted trader was clear, and that COAC needed to have the opportunity to fully understand, and get a lot more information before we were going to decide that we would formally endorse the new trusted trader initiative,” said Sherman. “And I think CBP appreciated the feedback, as tough as it was to hear, and course-corrected,” he said. “We’re honest and we’ll tell CBP when we think something needs to be re-thought out or, frankly, tabled for a while,” said Sherman. “We don’t want to be namby-pamby.”

What is needed from the trade is patience and discipline, said Karen Kenney of Liberty International, who is current co-chair of the COAC Trade Enforcement and Revenue Collection Subcommittee. “It’s important to remember inside these working groups and subcommittees it’s a marathon and not a sprint,” she said. “An initiative that isn’t fully formed or perfectly executed on day one does not a failure make. I think we need to regularly ping stakeholders, and we do on both sides, to learn how things are going, to openly discuss challenges, and not minimize them,” said Kenney. “For any of these long-term initiatives, the trade needs to be a little patient, and CBP needs some really strong leadership behind these initiatives that stays true to the original vision,” she said.

“I think for these subcommittees to move forward effectively, it takes a tremendous amount of time -- a huge commitment on both trade and the CBP side,” Kenney continued. “Also a discipline to maintain open dialogue when things aren’t necessarily going well, she said. “But we’ve seen these partnerships be super successful. And I think that, in addition to the subcommittee work, the COAC really delivers some much need continuity to the trade side of CBP’s mission too.” Both sides have learned "when we disagree that we can continue to have the conversation and find other solutions,” said Maria Luisa Boyce, who heads CBP’s Office of Trade Relations.

COAC Meetings Tightly Structured, but Most Work Happens in Background

COAC operates under the rules of the Federal Advisory Committees Act. “There are fairly strict rules governing how those committees work,” said Sherman. “It’s pretty tightly prescribed in terms of what those committees can do,” he said. For example, a federal officer has to be present at all meetings. Only COAC members can be part of subcommittees, and outside subject matter experts can only be brought in when work groups are specifically created. And the committees cannot act independently.. “The reality is that overall CBP sets the agenda,” he said, “but it’s really been a collaborative process … to develop the overall goals,” he said.

The structure can sometimes make COAC’s public meetings seem “robotic or scripted,” said Sherman. That’s because they are. COAC has to go through an update for each subcommittee, and the meetings, which already take four hours, would last all day if they went off script. “We try to have some ad hoc discussion, but we do have work we have to do in those public meetings, said Sherman. “I think what’s important to focus on is the content that’s being delivered. Really read the documentation that’s out there ahead of time, because there’s a lot of work and a lot of thought that goes into that.”

Much of COAC’s work isn’t even manifested in the documentation or the public meetings. ”COAC members spend hours on subcommittee calls engaging in very complex discussions, hammering out issues before the meetings,” said Sherman. “There’s a considerable amount of feedback that’s given to CBP that doesn’t necessarily manifest itself in the formal recommendation. But it’s very valuable,” he said. “So we’ll give advice on how to approach an issue, and what stakeholders need to be brought in,” said Sherman. “And I think that’s really of tremendous benefit to both the trade and CBP.”

WCO Pushes Public-Private Partnerships Globally

The World Customs Organization has also recognized the importance of building public-private partnerships, said WCO Deputy Secretary General Sergio Mujica. “The WCO has recognized Customs-business partnership as a key priority,” he said. “We have also established a clear mechanism to allow business participation in our meetings.”

Mujica praised “the great leadership again from the U.S. and CBP in this area. At the last WCO council session in June 2013, CBP acting Commissioner Thomas Winkowski gave a presentation introducing the “co-creation” concept to WCO members. Winkowski also suggested the WCO develop a toolkit for WCO members on best practices in customs-business partnership, said Mujica.

For public-private partnerships to work, they need to have certain features, said Mujica. First, Customs and the trade need to build a working relationship, he said. “I can guarantee that you will find problems and obstacles in the way, and the only way to overcome these problems is having a practice of working together,” said Mujica. Customs and the trade also need to recognize their different roles, he said. “Private sector cannot ask Customs to abandon its core responsibilities, including enforcement and control of customs regulations,” he said. “And similarly, Customs needs to understand business and its priorities, including the necessity of making money.” Finally, for these partnerships to work, Customs and the trade need to build trust, said Mujica. “Lack of trust is very inefficient, and very expensive as well, and it leads us to duplicate controls and requirements.”