Monday Morning eBriefing

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Assistant Port Director Anthony J. Fortunato in Miami confirmed in writing updated guidelines for submitting documents related to licensable exports. These submission guidelines address the heightened security concerns in the Miami area, especially regarding weapons and weapon parts, while taking modern, electronic methods into consideration.

Several NCBFAA room block dates (April 4, 5, 8) for the 52nd Annual Conference at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass in Pheonix, Arizona, on April 6-9, have sold out, with the remainder of the rooms expected to sell out within the next several days. You are still welcome to book your stay at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass for the nights that are available at the NCBFAA room block rate and book the other nights at the available Marriott rate. Otherwise, we recommend that you consider booking your lodging at one of the hotels just outside the resort.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued CSMS #64193234 which includes instructions for repointing your saved ACE Reports to the Automated Export System (AES) universe.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued instructions for the trade on procedures to follow when scheduling cargo inspections for perishable agricultural products during the CBP One Mobile application interruptions.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) experienced a weekend of chaotic layoffs as 700 employees were summarily dismissed — by email. The fired employees were in “probationary” status, meaning they had been hired (or transferred from a position in another agency) in the past one to two years.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Feb. 22 migrated ACE Secure Data Portal account user access management functionality to the modernized ACE Portal, resulting in the retirement of the legacy ACE portal.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Jan. 21 deployed updates to the ACE Protest Module to include a new secondary issue for Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanction Act (CAATSA) exception reviews.

NCBFAA submitted comments to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in response to its proposed rule to revise and automate the submission of the Certification of Admissibility (COA) form, expressing support for the effort to automate entry filing of the COA form. Currently, the COA only applies to certain seafood products from Mexico, but eventually it could apply to seafood from any country that the U.S. deems has fisheries that do not meet U.S. standards for protecting marine mammals.

On behalf of NCBFAA's Board of Directors, Leadership and Staff, we want to take a moment to acknowledge and welcome Agesbec Logistics USA, Complete Shipping Solutions Corp., Dynasty Customs Broker, Gander and White, and Savino Del Bene USA, which have recently joined our association. We're so excited to have these firms join our organization and we are happy to assist in any way we can!

A summary of the latest legislative and regulatory transport, logistics and trade sector updates brought to you by our NCBFAA Transportation Counsel firm Venable.

A summary of the latest customs and cross-border trade regulatory updates brought to you by our NCBFAA Customs Counsel firm Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg.

NCBFAA, which represents more than 1,300 Regular Member companies that provide customs brokerage services to hundreds of thousands of U.S. importers – large and small, remains at the forefront of providing pertinent regulatory and operational information to our nation’s customs brokers to ensure utmost compliance with the latest round of import tariffs imposed in recent weeks by the White House. This article provides your customs brokerage operation, as well as your importer clients, with the latest IEEPA tariff information and prospective changes to import clearances with Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

NCBFAA members have reported that some entries are being accepted by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) without proper duty calculations for the new IEEPA import duties on China.

The next Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) quarterly meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 5, from 1-5 p.m. ET in Atlanta. The meeting will be open for the public to attend in-person or via webinar.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has updated its tip sheet for importers and customs brokers filing entries of Electronic Nicotine Delivery System (ENDS) products.

The NCBFAA Export Compliance Subcommittee has reviewed the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) CSMS #64067950 which updates Appendix U of the Automated Export System Trade Interface Requirements (AESTIR) and has reached out to agency with its recommendations.

If you plan to attend the industry-leading 52nd NCBFAA Annual Conference at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass on April 6-9, but haven’t registered yet, you could miss out on the Early Bird benefits. Make sure to lock in the lowest possible price before it's too late! Early bird ends March 7. In addition, we will close registration earlier, with the cutoff on March 21, to help us manage the last-minute conference details.

NCBFAA supports the reintroduction of the BEST Facilitation Act by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) in the 119th Congress. The bill would create regional command centers where Customs and Border Protection (CBP) image technicians can review the images generated by NII scans.

George E. Bogden has been appointed as new Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Executive Director for the Office of Trade Relations.

The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Wage Scale Committee on Feb. 7 unanimously approved the new six-year contract with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). A ratification vote by the full ILA membership is scheduled for Feb. 25, and then USMX will vote on the contract ratification.