CIFFA 2024 Fall Forwarder

29 THE FORWARDER | FALL 2024 can. One of the things that makes this process go is making sure we as a customs community are being transparent and making the community aware,” he said. Citing the Authorized Economic Operator concept, Saunders said that we have to manage risk at the borders. “We are lowering that risk across as many borders as possible, structuring that relationship so that every time we interact with you we know you have invested as a representative of legitimate trade. We are looking to refine and grow that concept with input from the trade,” he said. What is bad trade? Narcotics, restricted goods-who places the controls? It could be imposed by a country unilaterally, it could be imposed by the UN. “It’s important not to overextend beyond what would be reasonable. We need to make sure at the national levels that we are working with the trade community that is doing legitimate trade. We can’t work within paradigm of enforced compliance but informed compliance. Those on the margin are on the margin for a good reason,” Saunders said. Added Erkeskin, “the known shipper concept was recently imposed as a security measure. Forwarders around the world were not prepared for it. During the pandemic we moved everything humanly possible to move vaccines around the world, just to help people to receive the vaccines. But what TSA is doing right now, is if you have an urgent shipment coming from a shipper for the first time, you have to move it by freighter. The possible effects should have been discussed with the industry, with freight forwarders, and properly announced. The information chain was broken. Government authorities should be more open to dialogue,” he said. “Very often what we are suffering from is the lack of predictability- whether this is related to near shoring or friend shoring it doesn’t matter. You still have to cross borders, you still have to follow regulations. I have a lot of sympathy for customs-they are executing policy that is set by the government. Customs is at the leading edge- trying to enforce regulations but maybe not understanding the reality of moving things around the world,” said Isler. He said that about 40-50% of his work is related to digitalization-“it’s easy to do it badly, not easy to do it well. But there is a savings to the economy if done properly,” he said.