Recap of the CBP East Coast Trade Symposium (& UPDATED Dates for 2018!)

As you know (for those of you who have been following our blog), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) held its annual East Coast Trade Symposium on December 5-6, 2017, in Atlanta, GA. Below summarizes the panels I attended, would love your thoughts if you were there. For those that couldn’t make it – hope below proves useful as a summary for you!

The event kicked off with Brenda B. Smith, CBP’s Office of Trade Executive Assistant Commissioner, introducing CBP’s trade strategy and the four important lanes CBP is focusing on:  

Importers: If you Can’t Answer These 12 Questions on Forced Labor You’re In Trouble!

An estimated 40.3 million people were living in modern slavery at any moment in time in 2016. This amounts to 5.4 victims of modern slavery for every thousand people in the world. Seventy three per cent of the victims of forced labor were female, and one in four victims were children. Forced labor accounted for 24.9 million people, while 15.4 million were in forced marriage.

What is the U.S. Doing About It?