It's an arcane profession! to qualify as a customs broker requires among other things passing a rigorous 4 and a half hour open book exam. Passing grade is 75%.<\/p>\n
Customs Brokers … Are Rising Stars of the Trade Wars<\/a><\/p>\n LAREDO, Texas\u2014Most workers in this city reliant on cross-border trade are anxious about the effect of President Trump\u2019s mercurial tariff plans. But the Byzantine knowledge<\/a> of customs brokers has never been in higher demand. <\/p>\n They help importers accurately classify and report goods to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and pay duties for their clients. This was dull, rote work in the heyday of free trade. <\/p>\n But in recent months brokers have been bombarded with pleas from clients working to rejigger supply chains<\/a> to mitigate the effect of Trump\u2019s tariffs<\/a>. Brokers are acting as accountant, lawyer, consultant and, at times, fortuneteller for clients desperate for clarity on U.S. policy.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though we hate tariffs, from a business standpoint, I think we\u2019re doing better than any other year,\u201d said Eduardo Lozano, founder and head of customs brokerage Eelco. He estimated business is up 20% in the past month. <\/p>\n Eelco auditor Diana Sanchez said she has been working 13-hour shifts in recent weeks, combing through customs filings for a Fortune 500 company to ensure each of its 400 weekly shipments from Mexico are properly classified using the CBP database of 18,000 codes that determine the duty on a product. <\/p>\n *********************<\/p>\n Laredo, the U.S.\u2019s largest inland port, handles more than $800 million in goods each day. Traffic downtown comes to a standstill several times a day as miles-long freight trains cut through. The city is home to the sprawling warehouses of more than 200 brokerage firms, many started as mom-and-pop shops by Mexican-American families who experienced a surge in business after the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in the 1990s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It's an arcane profession! to qualify as a customs broker requires among other things passing a rigorous 4 and a half hour open book exam. Passing grade is 75%. Customs Brokers … Are Rising Stars of the Trade Wars LAREDO, Texas\u2014Most workers in this city reliant on cross-border trade are anxious about the effect of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6994,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions\/6994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}