Regulating Global Trade: Customs, Tariffs, and Trade Levers

Course Overview

Examine the objectives and mechanisms of import customs formalities, including revenue collection, national security, environmental protection, and trade regulation. Explore government interventions in international trade, sources for import requirements, and the exercise of sovereign authority over territorial waters and in-transit cargo. Learn about international conventions governing transportation terms, operational safety, customs harmonization, and treaties regulating specific commodities. Understand trade restrictions on prohibited or controlled products and their implications for global commerce.

• Collection of customs duty (revenue) as traditional main objective of import customs formalities
• Additional objectives destination country objectives for import controls such as national security, protection of domestic industry, wealth preservation and environmental protection
• Forms of government intervention in international trade
• Sources of information on destination country import requirements and restrictions
• How sovereign nations assert unilateral authority to regulate commerce and shipping within their territorial waters, even with respect to vessels that do not enter their ports
• How sovereign nations assert control over in transit cargo that remains on board the vessel or aircraft stopping in their ports and airports
• International rules (conventions) that regulate ocean and air transportation with respect to commercial terms and conditions
• International rules (conventions) that regulate ocean and air transportation with respect to operational safety
• The harmonization of customs transit requirements International treaties and conventions that most countries have joined to regulate trade and transportation of particular commodities (i.e., dangerous goods, endangered species, military arms and munitions destined to U.N sanctioned countries)
• How some or many nations restrict or prohibit trade in specific types of products (e.g., illicit drugs, alcoholic beverages, unapproved food or pharmaceutical products, publications or articles deemed pornographic or blasphemous, gaming devices, and products which infringe intellectual property rights)
• Enforcement against violation of trade restrictions and sanctions by both destination and in transit countries through seizure of shipment or even capture and seizure of the transporting conveyance
• Conditions placed on an importer receiving preferential treatment (free or lower customs duty) under a free trade agreement The purpose of a certificate of origin for preferential customs entry under a free trade agreement
• Who should issue a certificate of origin and why a freight forwarder generally should not be this party
• The UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and how nations control trade in protected species
• Method of enforcement of nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaties U.S. trade verification regimes
• How unilateral and bi-lateral trade quota agreements are used to regulate trade
• How importer-level import controls and licensing operate
• How transaction-level controls and import licenses/permits operate Use of foreign exchange controls