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2003-2-20 18:23:00
American home textiles importers are accepting the imposition of a U.S. Customs early warning rule mostly in-stride and, like the citizenry itself, seem prepared to absorb the costs — in real dollars, additional work and inconvenience — in the names of security and peace of mind.
That’s not to say the requirement is without difficulty or that the trade is embracing it warmly.
The rule, which took full effect Feb. 2, requires shippers to provide U.S. Customs with detailed manifests of containers destined for the United States a minimum of 24-hours prior to their arrival at the port of embarkation. Paperwork arriving late or containers arriving without the mandated information are threatened with being shunted aside or left to be individually inspected, either invasively or by X-ray. Shippers who fail to meet the requirements are also subject to fines and other sanctions.
It’s all in the name of homeland security.
Yet, the requirement also flies in the face of increasingly tighter production and delivery scheduling — and the continuing fine-tuning of just-in-time standards. Those lofty goals, combined with the just as commonly found panic to get to market on time, often results in the practice of packing and loading a container only hours before a ship sails. No more.
“It’s one more potential international delay, and the retailer isn’t going to care whose fault it is when the goods don’t show up,” said Peter McCabe, executive vp of the Cumberland, MD-based Biederlack of America.
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