CPA Says CBP Report Stating de Minimis Entered Value Is Faulty
The Coalition for a Prosperous America, a free-trade-skeptical advocacy group, criticized CBP for issuing a report that said the value of goods that entered under de minimis in the previous fiscal year was $39,876,651,152 (see 2210180031). The group's trade counsel, Charles Benoit, wrote on Oct. 26 that CBP never disclosed a dollar figure before "because CBP does not know the true value for any period of time. They do not know because the majority of de minimis shipments arrive via international mail, and most international mail shipments do not contain electronic data."
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"CPA reached out to a trusted source at CBP to ask how CBP’s Office of Trade had managed to put a precise number on the value of de minimis shipments. The CBP source replied that the amounts were only the totals of de minimis shipments entered with electronic bills of lading, and did not include the value of de minimis shipments where this information was not available, which includes most international mail shipments."
CPA said that CBP said the document will be updated. "CBP recently published detailed statistics on de minimis imports for the first time. During the course of the posting, a clerical error occurred and a key footnote regarding the volume and value of international mail de minimis shipments was inadvertently dropped from the report. This generated questions regarding how the totals were derived and what population of shipments they represented," a CBP spokesperson said. "The report has since been updated to include the missing footnote. The totals included in the report reflect de minimis volume and value for international mail shipments where CBP has received advanced electronic data. CBP does not receive advanced electronic data on all international mail shipments."