CBP Plans to Extend, Expand Section 321 Pilot While Developing Proposed Requirements
CBP is planning to extend the ongoing Section 321 data collection pilot for low-value shipments and expand it to more participants while the agency continues to work on a proposal to require new mandatory data elements (see 2101290033), said Jim Swanson, CBP director-cargo and conveyance security and controls, who was speaking virtually during a CBP Detroit Trade Week event Aug. 3. "We think we need to expand that out, get more participation in it, get people used to the idea they have to collect this additional information, because the big effort that we're working on is regulations that will mandate that level of information," he said.
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Under the proposal, which is still being developed within CBP, "if you want to claim Section 321 and get electronic clearance on your shipments, you will be required to provide us a handful of data elements," Swanson said. Some of those elements were discussed during a CBP event last month (see 2107210045). "If you are unable to be able to segregate out" that information, "you would have to provide a 10-digit [Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS)] for every one of those shipments on that transaction," he said. That prefilled Section 321 data will be required to receive electronic manifest clearance and "otherwise it will go the manual path and it may be days or even a week or more before it gets cleared."
This approach would be a "replacement for manifest clearance across the universe," he said. That means "parties who are shipping will have to make sure that information is filed, carriers in order to get electronic clearance upon arrival will have to link it" to their transactions, he said. "It means communication between partners, it means information has to be included in booking information. We recognize it's probably going include changes to contracts, etc., as to what data is moved when and where within the process." There is still a "long regulatory process" that will need to play out before the requirements would take effect, he said.
Within the e-commerce world, "the one party we're probably figuring is least likely" to know the information CBP is seeking, is "the party who actually ordered the merchandise," Swanson said. Those parties, which are often individual consumers, "are not necessarily the educated importer we would expect to deal with in a normal trade universe."