Seatrade-Maritime: Importers push back on CBP supply chain data proposals

Published by Seatrade-Maritime

US Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) proposal to mandate heightened supply-chain data disclosures to boost cargo security is drawing sharp pushback from importers.

While ocean carriers see an opportunity to leverage advanced technology, importers warn that foreign paper trails are often non-existent – a gap highlighted by recent data straight from Chinese factory hubs.

In response to proposals in an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued by CBP earlier this month, ocean carrier Hapag-Lloyd urged the agency to move beyond traditional paper declarations. Highlighting its deployment of roughly two million “Internet of Things” (IoT)-enabled dry containers, Hapag-Lloyd argued that real-time equipment tracking offers objective, verified telemetry to detect illicit transshipment and routing anomalies without burdening trade.

“As CBP evaluates future supply chain visibility requirements, existing industry investments in connected container technology provide an opportunity to leverage proven capabilities rather than requiring entirely new infrastructure or reporting frameworks,” the company stated.

US importers, however, pushed back hard against proposals that would require buyers to obtain, retain, or validate foreign export filings.

Family-owned importer TOV Furniture told CBP that it supports government efforts to protect businesses to keep “bad actors” from gaining an advantage through illegal transshipments. But at the same time, “any new rule should recognize a basic operational reality: a US importer cannot guarantee the accuracy, completeness, format, timing, or availability of a filing prepared by a foreign exporter, trading company, freight forwarder, customs agent, or foreign government,” wrote TOV co-founder Bruce Krinsky. He urged CBP to avoid holding importers strictly liable for documents controlled by third parties.

Semiconductor manufacturer Nanoverse Technologies underscored those concerns, asserting that foreign export filings remain outside importer control and that forcing importers to reconcile foreign and US data discrepancies creates unnecessary friction.

“An importer generally cannot determine whether a foreign filing is accurate, complete, timely, properly amended, or compliant with the foreign country’s laws,” commented Nanoverse Technologies director of global supply chain Nick Mauro. “Nanoverse urges CBP to adopt targeted, risk-based alternatives that focus on transactions with actual indicators of customs risk rather than imposing universal new burdens on compliant importers.”

Legal analysis submitted to CBP by the Kelly Legacy Institute similarly advised CBP to maintain a “reasonable care” standard for the importer record when providing documentation necessary for CBP to determine compliance.

“That standard should not silently become an absolute guarantee of third-party accuracy,” stated Kelly Legacy Institute founder Delonte Kelly. “An importer may reasonably be expected to investigate facial inconsistencies, missing records, contradictory invoices, or materially inconsistent information, while lacking authoritative means to guarantee the truthfulness of statements made by an independent foreign actor.”

Upstream reality check

Importer pushback aligns with ground-level feedback received by Seatrade Maritime News from Supplymo, a supply chain analytics platform based in Yiwu, China.

Analyzing the public API of 1688.com, a wholesale marketplace owned by Alibaba Group and a primary source of containerised consumer cargo, Supplymo evaluated the invoice fields across 120 top-ranked product listings. The analysis revealed that 72 listings (60%) declared no invoice capability whatsoever, while the remainder split between general invoices (19) and general plus special VAT invoices (29).

“Whatever a carrier is asked to transmit about a shipment, the paper trail starts with a seller who often shows no invoice capability,” wrote Supplymo Founder Liam Cai in an email to Seatrade Maritime News, which highlighted some of the disconnect between what CBP is considering in its proposal and the factory-floor reality overseas.