U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s long-running Air Cargo Advance Screening pilot has put the agency “in a great position to address e-commerce and its implications for smaller cargo,” Deputy Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told attendees at CBP’s East Coast Trade Symposium Dec. 2. McAleenan, who will head CBP on an interim basis after Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske steps down in January 2017, said that regulations to make ACAS permanent should be finalized soon.

E-commerce has “dramatically impacted” both CBP and the trade community, McAleenan said. It allows many medium, small, and “nano” sized businesses to participate in global trade, but it also requires CBP to screen an increasing number of individual parcels for drugs, weapons, cash, intellectual property rights violations, and more…”