Broker Outreach Around USMCA Transition Key to Smaller Importer Compliance, CBP's Smith Says
Keeping customs brokers updated with the details of U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement compliance is critical to helping smaller importers transition away from NAFTA, said Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner of CBP’s Office of Trade. Smith was interviewed on a June 25 podcast hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies about the USMCA, which enters into force July 1.
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While the auto industry generally “has this down” and “spends a lot of money on compliance,” much of the agriculture import industry is made up of “mom and pop's that are bringing in a couple truckloads a week across the border of tomatoes or avocados,” she said. “Those folks are the ones that we really have to make an effort to educate. A lot of times, our best ability to do that is through their customs broker.” The brokers “serve as an interface between the government and the private sector,” so “we see a lot of value in making sure they understand what the rules are.”
Many smaller businesses don't have the time to go through all implementing instructions, but through a call with a Center of Excellence and Expertise or customs broker “they usually can find the right path through,” she said. “And that's a repeatable process. So if they figure it out once, it usually can be applied multiple times.”
Smith also said the deal should result in new “flexibilities” for brokers. “I think what the trade agreement lays down is an agreement between the three countries that we need to liberalize the way those customs brokers are able to operate,” she said. “So as companies are in multiple ports or as they're national in nature, we are looking to make sure we can be as flexible as private industry is.”
The change away from a standard NAFTA Certificate of Origin is hoped to reduce some difficulties that companies find when getting that form from another party, Smith said. Under USMCA, “what you now have to show is through your books and records or through some other documentation that your goods were produced where they are required to be produced.” This should “take a significant amount of pressure off businesses that are trying to be compliant from actually getting that piece of paper from their manufacturer or their grower,” she said.
Other expected eventual improvements as a result of the new deal include “full implementation of a single window,” which will align the procedures around where “each of our governments collect information about those trade transactions,” she said. The customs regimes are also coordinating closely, she said. For example, Canada is looking to “redesign its intellectual property rights protection” and CBP has provided some input on what is working in the U.S., so Canada doesn't have to “start from scratch,” she said.