Almost a decade ago, President Obama used the vista of his State of the Union Address to set forth an ambitious agenda to reshape the current status quo in the way goods moved across the border and to make “One US Government” (One USG) at the border. The stated goal was to help US businesses compete in a global economy. Central to this agenda was the International Trade Data System (ITDS). ITDS promised to allow businesses to electronically transmit, through a “single window,” the data required by the US Government to import and export cargo. While ITDS operated methodically, Customs’ Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) was delivering automated functionality. With the benefits being so great to business, the trade sought an executive order to bring the One USG at the border principals into fruition by establishing deadlines and key expectations on collaboration and escalation.
The Obama administration stood up the Border Interagency Executive Committee (BIEC), which was tasked with bringing together the participating government agencies (PGAs) through ITDS and collaborating with the private sector to identify ways and means to improve trade facilitation at the border. With input from the private sector, specifically under the organized Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC), the BIEC was tasked in determining what data is needed to measure trade risks and levels of compliance. In concept, this public-private partnership sparked the fire in the trade community and within the PGAs to pursue strategic collaboration and cooperation toward “One USG” at the border.
Fast forward to today, trade facilitation seems to matter less. The BIEC no longer includes the trade community in its deliberations. Collaboration and cooperation have been replaced by veiled policy priorities and no publicly published desired outcomes. The trade community is still succumbed by a spaghetti bowl of redundant and duplicative data that is needed to receive a “may proceed” at the border. Couple this challenge with the plethora of new trade remedies, tariffs, and social compliance measures that have emerged over the last decade, we have not moved any further from 2014’s status quo.
For example, importing wet pet food containing tuna and chicken requires three PGAs with various hard copy forms; 54 PGA data elements; 21 redundant data elements; and 16 inconsistent definitions of the same data. The trade community can cite numerous examples of these challenges at the border that covers every industry. This disarranged approach hardens the commercial border and makes the US less competitive as well as creates additional costs for companies large and small. Action is needed immediately.
PGAs and the trade community need to revive the collaboration and cooperation that led to the advancement of Coordinated Border Management initiative and One US Government at the border. The mission set out in 2014 is not complete. We need to pursue codifying the BIEC with trade engagement and ensure that PGAs have a true governance structure that reshapes the status quo at the border and leads to “One USG.” Trade matters in our nation’s chase toward sustained economic growth and security. The growth and security that we all pursue will continue to be elusive without “One USG.”