Happy New Year Sir!
A lot is going down in January!
We'll all soon see!
Especially after January 21, right? There's been a lot of "talk," now it's time to "walk," right?
Let's see who's "walking" and how far they "walk." Or, are we just gonna get more "talk?"
Once the de minimus legislation passes you can expect major changes within months of that.
However, some of the initial steps at cracking down are already being implemented via Biden's executive order signed in September.
Yes they'll increase examination capacity, and advanced scanners will make that process much more efficient, but they'll still only be able to examine a small fraction of packages when millions are arriving daily.
The main thrust of the approach is via the data that has to be sent to customs in advance, and using that to narrow down what they choose to look at closely.
Instead of 8 pieces of somewhat vague information per package, they'll all require 40+ each, getting particularly detailed about the sender and recipient, Enforce this requirement on shippers with an iron fist, imposing heavy fines for any violations, and that alone will solve most of the contraband problem.
Shipping companies don't want the headache. It's not like contraband filled packs are some major source of income compared to legit goods.
So suddenly the data from the packs in a container shows several from a "new vendor" going to recipients who've previously gotten seizure letters for controlled substances, and bam, that container gets flagged.
Then you run the contents of that container through the inspection process and you've improved the odds of a hit greatly without wasting time lookin thorough a container filled with packs from "trusted sources" going to people who don't have a history of seizures.
Find naughty packs, that data goes into the system, and now the sender gets flagged and the recipient addresses gets even hotter. Just slightly change or misspell the address a little to "fool" the system? They have a system called "name and address disambiguation" to catch this.
It's not a secret, this is exactly the approach CBP says they intend to take.
A lot of big Chinese companies have already signed up to voluntarily provide the additional data to make sure they're "trusted" and their goods get through quickly.
