Former CBP Officials Expect CTPAT to Remain

Sean Beddows, who worked for CBP for 22 years, including as acting CTPAT director, described on Nov. 6 how he and his colleague and fellow CBP veteran Brad Skinner held a webinar several weeks ago on CBP's Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism initiative for its members, and the two were flooded with 150 submitted questions about the initiative.

One of the questions Beddows has received often this year is how changes in trade regulations under the administration of President Donald Trump will impact CTPAT. While Beddows said he doesn't have an answer for that particular question, U.S. presidents have historically retained CTPAT.

"The answer is, I have absolutely no idea, right? And we're in uncharted territory. But what I can do is reflect historically, and over the 20-plus years of CTPAT, there's been several administration changes [but] there has never been a direct impact on the CTPAT program from those changes in administration," Beddows said. Beddows is now vice president of global services for CT Strategies, while his colleague Skinner is a senior adviser for CT Strategies. Skinner was with CBP for 34 years, where he worked in Laredo and Houston as assistant director and also served as CTPAT's assistant director.

Although CTPAT is likely to survive, the change in White House administration can still result in some impacts. Namely, momentum for the program may depend on who the sitting president selects as CBP commissioner, as that commissioner may not have much experience in trade matters and may set unrealistic goals for CTPAT, according to Beddows.

The government shutdown also has the potential to cause hiccups in getting companies validated for the program, Beddows said.

"As the government has been shut down, all of the validations that were planned to take place during that time are about to be rescheduled, postponed, so now you're shrinking the window of opportunity to get those things done," Beddows said.

While coordinating meetings with foreign and domestic sites and business partners is typically flexible, these "shutdowns impact [the government's] ability to travel and get the job done. Then we see that flexibility to start shrinking," Beddows said.

Skinner reminded conference attendees that CTPAT plans to initiate a pilot for non-asset-based third-party logistics partners, in addition to asset-based third-party logistics partners (see 2410020041). The Federal Register notice enabling companies to learn more about the pilot and sign up for it has yet to be published, but the pilot will run for five years, Skinner said.

"What's important [in that pilot] is if they were to open up the sector for importer partners," Skinner said. Meanwhile, the asset side of the pilot could be directed to warehouse operations involved in the flow of international cargo coming into the country, he continued.

During the session, Beddows speculated that there wouldn't be significant changes to the minimum security criteria. "We have no indication for the program that there's going to be any significant changes coming to the minimum security criteria" except for some minor updates to the rail carrier minimum security criteria, Beddows said.

Beddows also observed that the validation process can be uneven, as companies seeking entrance into CTPAT can range anywhere from large, multinational companies to small outlets that cross the border regularly.

"The inconsistency of this process is outrageous. Different formats, different requests for information. Some of it's reasonable, some of it's absolutely over the top, and we recognize that we also see that same issue very much with security profiles, annual review," Beddows said.

While his intent isn't to bash CTPAT, especially since CBP couldn't attend the conference and defend itself, Beddows said he sees inconsistency with how the validation process plays out.

“There's companies in the program that have 10,000-plus employees, massive international networks, and then there's a guy named John, who lives in his house and has a truck, and he crosses the border once a day. Both those companies and everybody in between is allowed to be in the program, and they all have to meet the same minimum security criteria for the business entity, so there has to be a significant level of flexibility” in the interpretation and application of federal security criteria, Beddows said.

However, "you see these vastly different approaches by supply chain security specialists, and even the field office that they represent," he continued. Field offices may also have their "own kind of personality and procedures," he said.

To address this issue, Beddows recommended that AIAG members put together a list of issues that have cropped up so that they can approach CTPAT and "get these conversations started," he said.

This includes potentially confusing language in the guidelines, such as for minimum security criteria, Beddows and Skinner said.

The language for minimum security criteria had been "developed in collaboration with the trade community over a long period of time, with a lot of inputs, but it's not perfect. It can be perfected," Skinner said. Bringing these issues over language before headquarters enables the agency to take these issues into consideration whenever it decides to revise the security criteria, Skinner continued.

"Remember, it's supposed to be a partnership program. They're supposed to listen to you. This was supposed to make changes that make sense for you guys and for them," Beddows said.