North American Trade Symposium

   Ongoing progress between Mexican, U.S. and Canadian authorities to integrate border management policies and procedures has led CBP to consider proposing a tripartite conference, modeled on its popular Trade Symposium, to update industry about their joint efforts, Deputy Commissioner Thomas Winkowski said.
   In a briefing with reporters, Winkowski laid out the possibility of expanding the forum to Mexico and Canada to help get the cooperation of businesses there and exchange ideas for minimizing the regulatory burden on cross-border trade.
   CBP’s mission of securing and expediting trade can best be accomplished through cooperation with international partners, and the working relationship with Canadian and Mexican customs authorities has become especially tight in the past few years, Winkowski said.
   Although the NAFTA partners have made good progress on thinning red tape at the border for legitimate traders, “I think there’s a lot more opportunity out there for us to really make the globe even smaller than it is today,” he said.
   “In order to do that, I believe, you got to get buy-in from the stakeholders. They have to want to be part of this. And I think there’s no better forum than something like [the Trade Symposium]” for two-way learning, Winkowski said.
   The deputy commissioner suggested the event could be sponsored by all three customs administrations, with the location rotating among the nations.