Bersin shuffles CBP leadership to focus on trade

Bersin shuffles CBP leadership to focus on trade    U.S. Customs Commissioner Alan Bersin shuffled some of his top managers Thursday to fast track his strategic goal of helping businesses be more competitive by reducing complexity and costs of complying with trade regulations, senior agency officials disclosed.
   Assistant Commissioner Daniel Baldwin, who heads the Office of International Trade, has been named executive director of cargo and conveyance security within the Office of Field Operations. Todd Owen, who holds that position, is slated to become director of field operations in Los Angeles. Al Gina, assistant commissioner for international affairs, will replace Baldwin, a Customs and Border Protection official said.
   Several months ago Gina was temporarily assigned to the commissioner’s office to work on putting together the new joint field command in Arizona. Charles Stallworth, who served as acting assistant commissioner of International Affairs during the period, will continue in that role.
   International Affairs is responsible for coordinating and supporting foreign initiatives, programs and activities.
   The shakeup effectively represents a demotion for Baldwin, but is intended to infuse the security-focused Field Operations branch with more expertise on trade policy, as well as add someone with operational enforcement experience within International Trade.
   Importers and transportation providers have complained the past decade that CBP has focused almost entirely on adding extra antiterrorist security measures for international shipments and neglected trade functions aimed at catching companies that try to evade duties and trade rules. That puts companies that comply with the laws at a disadvantage.
   The leadership changes, effective the week of March 15, are designed to ‘more effectively integrate’ CBP’s trade and security functions, the CBP official said on background.

Bersin

   Bersin personally informed the Commercial Operations Advisory Committee, several trade organization heads and former CBP commissioners about the personnel changes in a conference call Thursday, according to industry sources.
   Bersin has made trade facilitation and commercial enforcement one of his top priorities since taking over the agency almost one year ago. His stated goal is to lower the cost of cross-border customs clearance by 10 percent to 20 percent and expedite clearance for companies that provide more detailed, advance information about their trade partners and shipments. Bersin has also repeatedly talked about providing extra benefits to firms that participate in trusted trader programs and have proven internal controls for security and compliance.

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   In recent months, the agency has started two pilot programs to explore whether importers can be managed on an account basis instead of having to review paperwork and collect fees for each shipment. And Bersin took steps to significantly speed up the process of issuing customs broker licenses.
   The personnel changes suggest that Bersin felt Baldwin was slow to resolve problems with trade facilitation, especially when the clock on his leadership could run out by the end of the year if he isn’t formally confirmed by the Senate.
   Bersin received a recess appointment from President Barack Obama last year. The Senate Finance Committee, led by Chairman Max Baucus, has pressed hard for CBP to start providing better treatment to companies engaged in international trade.
   The Finance Committee, along with the House Ways and Means Committee and the Office of U.S. Trade Representative, have also been unhappy with Baldwin’s lack of consultation with them. Baldwin is considered the person behind CBP’s failed attempt in early 2008 to change the First Sale rule, a move that caught Congress and the trade community by surprise and led to a fierce backlash.
   The First Sale doctrine allows importers to pay duty on the lower price at which a supplier purchased the goods from the overseas factory rather than on the last sale to the import, as long as certain conditions are met.
   Baldwin has been assistant commissioner for international trade since 2006. He previously served as assistant commissioner in the former Office of Strategic Trade and before that as director of the trade management division in OST. He has not worked at a port of entry during his career, which he began as a trade specialist focusing on analyzing customs entries and other documentation for steel imports.

Baldwin

   CBP officials said Baldwin would still be the executive business owner of the Automated Commercial Environment, a position created in June 2009 to help the agency develop coherent business requirements from the user’s perspective for the massive information technology upgrade.
   Baldwin confirmed several details in an e-mail, but did not respond to questions seeking comment on whether there had been any complaints about his leadership.
   Baldwin’s removal from International Trade was privately welcomed by several members of the trade community, which has been frustrated by the lack of progress on trade facilitation during the past several years.
   Trade compliance professionals have repeatedly complained that CBP rhetorically espoused a desire for industry partnership on trade facilitation and to only enforce substantive violations of trade law, while at the same time ratcheting up burdensome document requests, penalties and other enforcement activities.
   In the past year, importers and their brokers have been peppered by CF 28 forms for additional information on entries and notices of action, one industry official said on condition of anonymity.
   The official said the effort appeared designed to preempt companies from filing prior disclosures of technical violations they uncovered themselves so that penalties and damages could be collected. The heavy-handed enforcement activity has severely damaged the spirit of cooperation among many trading companies, industry officials have said in recent years.
   Several private sector sources said Baldwin’s management style alienated people and lowered morale within his office, leading to the departure of several good staff members. Among the criticisms was that Baldwin had no relationship with the field offices and was a poor communicator, providing little guidance, for example, to regional directors and port directors about the new Center for Excellence and Expertise pilot project to streamline the importation process for pharmaceuticals and the Account Executive programs.
   Officials in the field had to call headquarters to get briefings because they were in the dark about these and other policies, one former CBP official said.
   ‘They were completely out of the loop. They couldn’t answer questions from importers and they looked like idiots,’ the official said.
   Some in the customs broker community have expressed support for Baldwin’s work given recent attention to broker issues that previously had been ignored.
   The Office of Field Operations is headed by Assistant Commissioner Thomas Winkowski. Baldwin is expected to bring trade input into policy, budget, enforcement and deployment deliberations, but questions remain about how well Baldwin and Winkowski will work together.
   An industry trade specialist, who deals closely with CBP and didn’t want his name used, called Bersin’s decision ‘a clever ploy’ because it elevates the profile of trade within Field Operations and forces it to deal with other issues and agencies in a more holistic manner beyond security, while helping to restore trust within the trade community about CBP’s commercial mission.

Gina

   Gina is a 28-year CBP veteran who previously served as head of Office of Intelligence and Operations Coordination, and led key programs such as the Container Security Initiative and the Secure Freight Initiative.
   Although Gina doesn’t have much experience in commercial enforcement matters such as antidumping, textile quotas, or country-of-origin fraud, former colleagues say he is considered a top manager, collaborator and quick study who will be able to mend relations within and outside the agency.

Owen

   As the top CBP official in the Los Angeles region, Owen will be responsible for supervising about 2,000 CBP officers and employees processing travelers and cargo at Los Angeles International Airport, the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and Las Vegas International Airport. Owen headed the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program and held other posts during a six-year run at CBP headquarters in Washington. Prior to that tour he was CBP port director in New Orleans. He is considered a rising star within CBP and the move gives him the chance to gain experience managing a large, complex field operation for the first time.
   CBP has an acting district director for the Los Angeles region. Owen is expected to complete his transfer to Los Angeles by late May or early June. ‘ Eric Kulisch