Tariff engineering has been somewhat of a hot topic in the logistics and supply chain industry for a little while now. The United States has been putting additional pressure on their trading partners like China and Mexico, causing businesses to look to alternative methods of sourcing and production for their [...]
Last month, it was announced that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was awarded a whopping $15M fund to continue the development of a goods tracking platform. This award comes not a moment too soon, as the existing system is over 30 years old! Called the Automated Commercial System, the [...]
Looking back to 2001, we can see the moment in which US Customs merged together with other agencies -- founding what we know now as Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Along with this merging, the mission shifted from simply administering tariffs, to homeland security. CBP as we know it, in [...]
Prior to the pandemic, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) made it public that they were focusing their efforts on getting more data on counterfeit and prohibited goods that have been entering the US through small parcel importing. In addition with the context of COVID-19, they will also be looking into [...]
Hailed as a modernization of NAFTA, there have been a lot of expectations placed on USMCA to improve trade between the involved countries (USA, Canada, Mexico). NAFTA was indeed 24 years old as the countries reached an agreement. Also known as NAFTA 2.0, the goal of USMCA is to provide [...]
In our first installment on this topic, we covered the basics of tariff engineering, use cases from brands like Converse and Nike, and how importers can get started implementing these practices. You can read that introductory piece here: Importing and Tariff Engineering: An Overview Tariff engineering is a method in [...]
It is the responsibility of the importer to ensure that valuation laws and regulations are well-grasped. Of course, CBP requires that all importers moving goods into the US exercise reasonable care during all parts of the process. Under this legal framework is the payment surrounding the transactions outside of the [...]
It is of utmost importance that importers -- or any businesses within the supply chain, for that matter -- are aware of the various penalties implemented by CBP for importing into the US. Customs experts consistently warn of the costly, and possibly disastrous, results of non-compliance with CBP regulations. In [...]
Importers have been quite successful at riding the wave of the economy over the last year despite a pandemic, economic shortcomings, and supply chain disruptions. Amid these treacherous times, the hotly anticipated “New NAFTA” or USMCA was put into force in July 2020. We have covered a few key considerations [...]
Amazon’s momentum as a leader in global trade shows no signs of slowing down in 2021. With eCommerce further exploding (more than it already has in the past decade) in the advent of the pandemic, it’s not too late for importers to leverage this powerful platform. A total of 86% [...]
