U.S. Customs and Border Protection: Trade Facilitation, Enforcement, and Security

[Excerpt] This report describes and analyzes import policy and CBP’s role in the U.S. import process. (The report does not cover CBP’s role in the U.S. export control system.) The first section of the report describes the three overarching goals of U.S. import policy and the tension among them. Second, the report provides a legislative history of customs laws, followed by an overview of the U.S. import process as it operates today. Third, the import process and CBP’s role in it are discussed. The final section highlights several policy issues that Congress may consider in its oversight role or as part of customs or trade legislation, including measures seeking to provide additional trade facilitation benefits to importers and others enrolled in “trusted trader” programs, to improve enforcement of intellectual property and trade remedy laws, to strengthen cargo scanning practices, and/or to promote modernization of customs data systems, among other issues. A list of trade-related acronyms used in the report is provided in Appendix A

Key issues in trade facilitation : summary of World Bank/European Union workshops in Dhaka and Shanghai in 2004

Trade facilitation is the ability of countries to deliver goods and services on time at the lowest possible cost. It has emerged as an important issue in unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral trade liberalization. Most countries have embarked on heroic reforms aimed at reducing transaction costs of trade. Thus, among the four new Singapore issues, there was least resistance from World Trade Organization (WTO) member countries to include trade facilitation in the Doha Round discussions. However, all countries are not equally placed in initiating reforms in the complex areas of customs procedures, transport and port logistics, harmonization of standards, and simplification of procedures. Trade facilitation reforms require a large volume of technical assistance for national capacity building. To facilitate what these reforms entail and what can be learned from cross-country experiences, the EU and the World Bank organized two workshops in Dhaka (South Asian countries) and Shanghai (East Asian countries) in 2004. Jointly they succeeded in bringing together renowned experts from multilateral organizations, selected bilateral donor community, the private sector, ex civil servants, and scholars. The participants were largely drawn from the relevant government departments and chambers of commerce and industry. This paper summarizes the main presentations in the workshops. It also indicates the areas that need more focus in future events. The paper should serve as a reference document for national policymakers and for future seminars and workshops on trade facilitation. It has also linked the presentations to the ongoing research work on trade facilitation.Common Carriers Industry,Transport and Trade Logistics,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Trade Policy

Aquatic food security:insights into challenges and solutions from an analysis of interactions between fisheries, aquaculture, food safety, human health, fish and human welfare, economy and environment

Fisheries and aquaculture production, imports, exports and equitability of distribution determine the supply of aquatic food to people. Aquatic food security is achieved when a food supply is sufficient, safe, sustainable, shockproof and sound: sufficient, to meet needs and preferences of people; safe, to provide nutritional benefit while posing minimal health risks; sustainable, to provide food now and for future generations; shock-proof, to provide resilience to shocks in production systems and supply chains; and sound, to meet legal and ethical standards for welfare of animals, people and environment. Here, we present an integrated assessment of these elements of the aquatic food system in the United Kingdom, a system linked to dynamic global networks of producers, processors and markets. Our assessment addresses sufficiency of supply from aquaculture, fisheries and trade; safety of supply given biological, chemical and radiation hazards; social, economic and environmental sustainability of production systems and supply chains; system resilience to social, economic and environmental shocks; welfare of fish, people and environment; and the authenticity of food. Conventionally, these aspects of the food system are not assessed collectively, so information supporting our assessment is widely dispersed. Our assessment reveals trade-offs and challenges in the food system that are easily overlooked in sectoral analyses of fisheries, aquaculture, health, medicine, human and fish welfare, safety and environment. We highlight potential benefits of an integrated, systematic and ongoing process to assess security of the aquatic food system and to predict impacts of social, economic and environmental change on food supply and demand

Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing: A Whitepaper

Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing refers to fishing activities that do not comply with regional, national, or international fisheries conservation or management measures. This whitepaper characterizes the status of Illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing, the philanthropic community's current efforts to help reduce it, and potential opportunities for the Packard Foundation to become more actively engaged. The paper was drafted between March and June 2015, following a combination of desk research and a handful of select interviews

Managing the Risk of Stranded Assets in Agriculture and Forestry

To date, much of the research into stranded assets – broadly defined as assets incurring significant unanticipated or premature write-downs or devaluations – has focused on the fossil fuel sector. However, not least in the context of the 2015 Paris Agreement, and with growing understanding that climate change may become a major factor in the creation of stranded assets, it has become clear that it is not just the energy sector that will be affected. Assets in agriculture and forestry may also be at risk of stranding, because of physical impacts such as drought and desertification as well as through regulatory and technological change.The risk of stranding is particularly high in production regions where natural forests are being cleared for agricultural use. Other regions at high risk are those where climate change is predicted to have impacts that will severely disrupt production cycles or shift production patterns. In addition, strong low-carbon development plans can affect the regulatory frameworks that govern the agriculture and forestry sectors, bringing further risks of stranding.Stranding risks have a potential impact on the various actors positioned along the supply chain for agriculture and forest commodities. They include the land- or rights-owners, the owners of infrastructure related to the transport and processing of commodities, consumer companies and investors.The faster the pace of decarbonization, or the more pronounced the impacts of climate change, the greater the chance of asset stranding and the higher the likelihood of economic, social and political impacts. The prospect of asset stranding could be sufficient to cause potentially affected groups to impede efforts towards low-carbon development, but this possibility has not been sufficiently accounted for in the national low-carbon development plans of either developed or developing economies. As a result, there is a potential risk to the implementation of such plans.This paper includes case studies of stranding risk in Brazil, Malaysia and Liberia. In these countries, there are potentially significant risks of stranding, both from regulation and climate change impacts. However, there has been very little consideration of these risks by policymakers, and there are significant information gaps.Further research is necessary in the following areas: analysing the outlook for biofuels to assess the risk of stranding and the possible impacts of new technology; assessing the physical impacts of extreme weather events on investments, taking into account the role of the insurance industry and price fluctuations; and determining whether growing consumer preferences for 'sustainable' products contribute to the risk of stranding in agriculture and forestry.Such research could be used to initiate discussions within producer countries about the risk of stranded assets given their national strategies and policies, and in light of the available evidence of the physical impacts of climate change, in order to identify the options for both mitigating and managing that risk

A proposed framework for managing environmental causes and consequences of ocean traffic and ports

Paper presented at European Decision Sciences Institute (ED2016), 7th Annual Conference, 24th to 27th May 2016, Helsinki. Abstract The cumulative and in-combination effects of ocean shipping and port operations need addressing via a detailed, rigorous and holistic framework of risk assessment and risk management. This aims to protect the natural system while at the same time obtaining societal benefits from the seas. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that integrates both an ISO industry standard risk assessment and management framework (Bow-tie analysis) and the DAPSI(W)R(M) analysis supported by the ten-tenets criteria to provide guidance for all stakeholders, including industry and government, to address these issues. Water pollution stemming from maritime logistics and SCM are used to illustrate this framework

Implications of climate change for shipping: Ports and supply chains

Ports are an important economic actor—at local, national, and international scales—that have been identified as being vulnerable to future changes to the climate. This paper details the findings from an international review of state‐of‐the‐art knowledge concerning climate risks, and adaptation responses, for ports and their supply chains. Evidence from both academic and gray literature indicates that there has already been major damage and disruption to ports across the world from climate‐related hazards and that such impacts are projected to increase in the years and decades to come. Findings indicate that while a substantial—and growing—body of scientific evidence on coastal risks and potential adaptation options is acting as a stimulus for port authorities to explicitly consider the risks for their assets and operations, only a notable few have actually made the next step toward implementing adaptation strategies. This paper concludes by putting forward constructive recommendations for the sector and suggestions for research to address remaining knowledge gaps. It emphasizes a call for collaboration between the research and practice communities, as well as the need to engage a broad range of stakeholders in the adaptation planning process

Policy options for improving regional fertilizer markets in West Africa:

A primary motivation for this study is to identify a key set of policy options for improving fertilizer markets in West Africa (among Economic Community of West African States member countries) in ways that ultimately will help improve the efficiency of regional markets and lower the transaction costs and fiscal burdens of increasing fertilizer use in the region. Guided by the 2008 fertilizer crisis, many governments are tempted to impose fertilizer subsidies to reduce fertilizer prices. Yet, in an environment riddled with inefficiencies that contribute to the high costs of using fertilizers, the introduction of subsidies only adds more fiscal burden.To carry out the study, we undertook four country case studies to review the key constraints and bottlenecks along the fertilizer supply chain. The countries were Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal, and the research included field visits in 2009 and 2010. The current paper is based on the country case study results, complemented by a literature review and analysis of secondary data sources.common fertilizer market, fertilizer use and supply, harmonization of products and regulations, improved technology, policy environment, regional market integration, structure and performance of markets, supply chain,

Farming, Finance and the Global Marketplace: a summary of the 2010 agricultural symposium

In 2008, surging commodity prices triggered promises of a new golden era for agriculture. While prospects dimmed during the recession, the recovery is rekindling hopes with rising commodity prices. On June 8 and 9, more than 180 agricultural business and finance leaders examined agriculture’s potential at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s symposium, “Farming, Finance and the Global Marketplace.” Participants discussed how changes in the global marketplace are likely to affect the profitability and structure of agriculture.

While Doha Sleeps: Securing Economic Growth through Trade Facilitation

Improving the international trading system does not require new, comprehensive multilateral agreements. Countries can derive large gains from the trading system by engaging in reforms often referred to as trade facilitation. In broad terms, trade facilitation includes reforms aimed at improving the chain of administrative and physical procedures involved in the transport of goods and services across international borders. Countries with inadequate trade infrastructure, burdensome administrative processes, or limited competition in trade logistics services are less capable of benefiting from the opportunities of expanding global trade. Companies interested in investing, buying, or selling in local markets are less likely to bother if there are too many frictions related to document processing or cargo inspection at customs, antiquated port facilities, logistics bottlenecks, or limited reliability of freight or trade-financing services. According to recent studies from the World Bank and other international economic institutions, trade facilitation reforms could do more to increase global trade flows than further reductions in tariff rates. For many developing countries -- particularly those that receive preferential tariff treatment from rich countries -- reducing transportation and logistics-related costs through trade facilitation reforms would be much more beneficial than further tariff cuts. But trade facilitation does not only offer promise to developing countries. All countries can benefit by removing sources of friction in their supply chains. The post-9/11 focus on minimizing the risk of terrorists exploiting porous international supply chains to sneak weapons of mass destruction into U.S. cities -- obviously a vital objective -- could hamper the capacity of Americanbased companies to attract investment and compete for markets. Likewise, U.S. prohibitions against foreign competition in transportation services and the political antipathy toward foreign investment in U.S. port operations raise the costs of doing business and increase the scope for trade facilitation in the United States