Insider Secrets for Navigating Trade in 2025 – NCBFAA Experts Reveal All

Machine Automated Transcript:

Lalo  00:35

Hello everyone, and welcome to our new year show. Happy New Year. It’s 2025, much a lot of stuff has happened, and we’ve had this really crazy year of elections. And funny thing is that in North America, well actually Mexico and us every 612 years. I guess it’s every 12 years. It just happens that it coincides where Mexico and US elect the president on the same year. This happened to have been the year everybody thought it was going to be two females running Mexico and us. It didn’t happen. We got we us elected President Trump or President elect Trump, so he’s coming into office here in the next Gosh week or so, two weeks. And so we just thought that just like we do every year, we have a pretty fun and interesting show where we kind of like learn the lessons of the previous year and kind of predict that what may happen for the next year. And so this year, I decided to invite our friends over from NCB, FAA. This is really cool, because we did a lot of partnerships with them this year or not this year, but this 2024, we had a quite a few just collaborations that we’ve done, and we’re really excited with that partnership here at simply trade and at global Training Center. And so I just thought, let’s bring them in, because they have a lot of I really like. If nobody, well, I’m sorry. Let me go back. If you all are not members, you should be a member, because there is this really cool newsletter that we get every morning on Friday, on Monday, Monday morning news report. I’ll get corrected here, but anyway, and then every once in a while, JD, I think every month, sends out a the president, a note from the president of the organization is really neat, because you get they’re lobbying for us, and in Congress, they advocate for trade, for brokers, for freight forwarders, etc. So again, if you’re not a member, this is not a pitch. I’m just, I’m just trying to tell you all it is really valuable information. Of course, we’ll talk a little bit about their other stuff that they do, but we’ll concentrate on the events that are happening in 2025 and what happened in 2024 how it affects brokers and the industry, etc. So I won’t talk too much more, and I’ll bring in our guests. We have JD, who you all know because he’s been on our show several times. And so JD is the president of NCB FAA, and then we have other people joining him, which is Michael lar Kim Kelly Cott and Ralph de la Rosa. So welcome all, and if I messed up your names, please forgive me, so go ahead and JD, go ahead and introduce yourself. I already said you’re president, but just welcome and say hi.

JD Gonzalez  03:29

Thank the opportunity. I really do appreciate that, and I want to wish everybody a Happy New Year as well. They’re going to find an interesting year. I know there’s been a lot of changes going on, but before I go any further, I’d like to make sure that we transfer on and introduce our guest. All our guests are chairs of our committees, and I’ll start with females first. Kim, go ahead. You go first.

03:49

Well, Happy New Year. Thank you. JD, for the ncvfa, I chair the Transportation Committee, which covers NVOCC, freight forwarding, export compliance, air freight logistics, a little bit of all of that underneath the Transportation Committee. I’m glad to be here. So thank you for the opportunity, Lalo.

04:07

Thank you, Lalo and JD, Happy New Years to everybody, and it’s great way to start the new year off talking to all my friends out there who are fellow trade geeks. I am the chair of the regulatory agencies committee for the NCB, FAA. We work with all the agencies that you may encounter on a daily basis outside of the CBP realm. So we work with agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, the EPA, CPSC. It’s been very busy over the last 10 years. After it DS, we’ve had a lot of work that we’ve done with the various agencies, and they brought in their PGA message sets. We’ve got a couple of agencies left that we’re just working on finishing the crossing, finishing finish line over the next year or so. So. We’re very excited to work with our partner agencies in 2025

05:09

so Yes, hi. My name is Ralph de la Rosa, and I am the vice chair of the customs committee. So in the customs committee, we cover everything having to do, as you can guess, with us, customs clearances, trade policy, all sorts of interesting scenarios, and absolutely this, this upcoming year, we have lots that we’ll be working on. I’m sure we’ll talk about that a little bit later. I, like Mike, am also a trade geek. So hello to everyone else, and looking forward to the year ahead.

Lalo  05:40

Thank you so much everyone. Well, let’s talk a little bit about a lot of just what may happen. We’ve got two big announcements from President elect Trump on here in North America alone that we’re looking at maybe 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods coming into the US and the also the big one, which was 100% tariffs on any BRICS countries. So I kind of see why he would want to do the BRICs. You know that it is a threat to the American currency and the economy. And I mean it, that’s a very bold, let’s say, thread, I guess, or promise. I don’t know. I don’t know how we want to look at it right now, but, and so there’s been a lot I mean. And as far as let’s just start, I guess I just wanted to kick it off with that, because that’s fresh in our memories. I don’t know if anybody want to, wants to comment about that? Or should we go on what may have happened during the year that you all may be working on, what may maybe NCP FAA is legislating and pushing towards, you know, and I know there’s a lot of talk about de minimis, there’s a lot of talk about, I guess just quite a lot I mean that I know, I think we had talked about earlier on, GSP, I guess that hasn’t, like really fully been pushed through. And you know, there’s just quite a bit. So I don’t know anybody that wants to kick that off. Go ahead. I’d be more than glad to hear what you all may have learned from last year, from 2024

JD Gonzalez  07:20

and start off and go and just get off the rest of our the chairs. But with that being said, last month, I just was on the trip to Canada, in addition to that being a metro as well. And so dialog was kind of unique, because it was really fresh off our minds that, you know, Trump was just coming off the, you know, his his comments on the he’s going to start increasing at 20 25% the tariffs on products coming in. And, you know, more than anything else, I feel it’s a threat, but the same time, it’s something that in his book, he wrote in The Art of the Deal, working on negotiation tactics as well. I know that he’s already had dialog with both Prime Minister Trudeau and with a current Mexican president. I kind of, I want to mess up her name, but she has also made reference. You know that the dialog has been good. I know just recently they’ve also encountered one of the biggest fentanyl features there on the southern border as well. So I think it’s already starting to work. I don’t really think that Trump will implement the tariffs, but we do have lobbyists in Washington, I know, and the next day, we’ll be in DC as well, with watching our representatives, which house we could have dialog with him as well. So we’re waiting to see what’s going to happen. I know there’s a in previous time when Trump was president, he did the same threat to Mexico, and he waited till the Friday before. So we kind of know that we have to kind of sit on edge all the time to make sure that we could try to implement any kind of policy that he has set up. But the same time, there is a procedure that goes through, it won’t be overnight. He could he could say it’s going to happen overnight, but there’s still a process that they go through customs as well and as well as give the administrative USTR to go ahead and follow through and do any changes. So with that being said, I go ahead and pass off to anybody else that wants to make comments on

09:20

that. I’m happy to jump in for a bit. So, you know, one of the things Laura, you mentioned, is some of the stuff we may have learned from from the first from the first administration of Trump, right? And and that was a a lot of executive orders. And so the executive orders, many times, undid previous executive orders and establish new ones. And as we look forward to this year, I think we could expect a lot of that, some of it may be negotiation, as JD just mentioned, in which you know, yeah, you always want to negotiate from a from a position of strength. And so if you know, having folks worry about or other world leaders. Worry about high terrorists definitely will make them want to talk with the US, as they did, you know, in December, and being able to see what can be done about it. The other thing that we, you know, as our association, is we’re really looking at how we are going to help our clients, each of you know, obviously we’re all you know, licensed custom brokers and forwarders, and so we have to help our client, our clients, navigate what’s going to happen this year. It’s going to be fast, it’s going to be furious. And I think, really, right now, more than ever, the role of the licensed US Customs broker and the knowledgeable freight forwarder and NBCC are play a very critical role in helping, you know, importers navigate what’s going to be happening in in the very near future. We’re just weeks away from from from from the inauguration, and I think from day one, we can expect to see, you know, we could see many executive orders that we are going to have to react to as an industry.

11:05

Thanks, Ralph, I think you hit it right on the head when you said, our customers need to rely on their customs house brokers and freight forwarders to help them get through this very difficult time. But I also think that we need to firmly understand that the current situation is very much a wait and see if President Trump could wave his magic pen on january 20 and make things happen. It would be a very scary day, but I think there are a lot of other things in play that have to be taken into consideration. And the likelihood that things will happen on the 20th is a little bit in doubt, but there’s still a lot on the plate, a lot coming. The Democrats aren’t going to lay down and let the Republicans run roughshod over them, even though they do have the majority. So, you know, I think human beings tend to take things in the worst, and the media certainly likes to stir the pot. And everybody sees what’s on the news, and we all run around like Chicken Little but maybe we need to take a little bit of dose of, you know, not get up caught in the rhetoric and the saber rattling, and we’ve got to wait and see what happens before we can react.

12:28

I wholeheartedly agree with you, Mike, that we have to wait and see. There’s a lot of options out there of what could happen. So planning and looking at your supply chain and making sure that you do have a plan one way or the other, is definitely important, as you and Ralph said, make sure that you’re working with your supply chain partners, including the service providers, brokers, freight forwarders and Bos, to make sure that all of those options are available depending on which way you’re leaning on. Going in the first Trump administration, we saw a pause right when he took office, on all regulatory, new regulations being issued. So I think that we probably would see something like that again. We know that the previous Trump administration and he said similar for this upcoming administration, that he doesn’t want as many regulations as currently exists. So he wants to deregulate. He wants to roll things back. Although I think when we’re looking at the federal Maritime Commission, who in the recent years has bolstered their enforcement and their review of different practices within the ocean transportation industry, I think that that may continue, the enforcement there may continue, even though previously, under the previous Trump administration, there was almost no or very little enforcement from the FMC, but I think that this time, the enforcement is looking out for the shipper, the consumer. So I think that the Trump administration may continue that, and when we’re thinking about controls and sanctions. I see the upcoming Trump administration using that similar to how they used it before, to sort of negotiate different deals and, you know, put out the policy of how they view the different countries globally, and what trade they’re interested in. And as far as free trade agreements go, I think that Ralph mentioned sort of undoing things that currently exist, I see potentially some multilateral free trade agreements being renegotiated, and more unilateral trade agreements than currently exist.

Lalo  14:39

Great, great. And so let me go back a little bit here in 2024 and talk a little bit more about a lot of the things that we heard about in 2024 were things like forced labor potential, like I. Uh, rules for green trade. I mean, here in the US, not as much as maybe the EU and stuff. How do you all see like, anything like that, especially forced labor? I mean, I, I’ve been reading a lot and seeing a lot on how the the nominate, the the person that that Trump nominated for the Secretary of State, which is Senator Rubio. He feels that we’ve been a little easy, or lacks on, on, on forced labor, for example, like he just feels that maybe there’s a lot more that we can do. I don’t know if you all have heard or seen or anything like that also, but I’ve been again, catching some news here and there on that again, like green trade. I guess that’s highly unlikely, because that’s really not the path for a conservative administration. So I don’t know what anything on those issues or concerns.

16:01

I think there’s, there’s one area that could get really interesting. And you know, as a Trump administration showed, the previous Trump administration showed they, they, they take in the environmentalist fairly lightly. So when you’re looking at anything that has to do with the environment and the agencies involved, they’re going to have a difficult time in the next administration. But you mentioned forced labor. We have an agency under NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service that are trying to restructure the simp agreement, simp 2.0 we’ve been calling it, and to require certificates of admissibility. And while that serves its purpose in the marine side of the picture, it also helps with forced labor. So on the one hand, we’ve got an agency like NOAA that isn’t very large to begin with, and may struggle under the under the Trump administration, as far as the environmental side of things going, they’ve got a program that the human rights activists are looking at as a way to address forced labor. So this, this is going to be a teeter totter to see which way that one goes. And I, I don’t know if we can predict at the end of the day, how is NOAA and National Marine going to come out of this under the Trump administration? Are they going to be able to enact the new regulations? So that the people on the human rights side of things can get additional information to address forced labor, while on the other side of things, you know, Republicans tend to like deregulation, and you know, we may see them try to put the reporting requirements on pause. So this is an this is an area where it’s probably going to stay up in the air until we see what the Trump administration decides that they’re going to do with it.

18:13

And if I could jump in briefly, I think one of the important things to also point out is on many fronts, both the the soon to be previous Biden administration did, it didn’t undo many of the initiatives that Trump started when it had to do with forced labor. It forced labor. A lot of it, you know, came kind of strongly during during the latter part of Trump’s administration. It was continued through the Biden administration, and I think we will continue to see it coming with all the different incorporation of forced labor and enforcement of forced labor, which is a very critical question that the supply chain are going to need to continue to answer. They’re going to need to be able to go back into their supply chain, because it’s a it’s a friendly reminder that if any of your component is made with forced labor, the whole item when, if it arrives into United States, may be excluded from trade. So, you know, when it comes to forced labor, I think you’re gonna see a continuation of a the first administration of Trump, into his next administration. It’s not something that it’s being taken very seriously over the last several years, and it’ll continue to be an issue where companies really need to zip up and make sure that they’re compliant when they import into the United States.

JD Gonzalez  19:36

Thanks, Ralph. Just to add to that as well, I know that I was on a trip in Colombia, and I know that word. I’m dealing with Fiat. And one of the topics that came up to him was dealing with the green, green enforcement. And the one thing that the other countries know, the challenges that Trump will probably work. Through, considering, you know, the government is having a lot of benefits for the other countries that they’re working through, but we might not have the same type of benefits. Considering, you know, this administration being pro business, and they kind of don’t work towards the regulation. So we might not have that same kind of benefit. We might not we might have to sit through a couple, maybe the next four years, to see where we go with this. But the same time, I know that the greenhouse effects really affecting our nation, so we’ll see where we go with this. At the same time, you know, we just, we’re up in the air with some kind of information that’s being provided, considering that, you know, Trump might do, like Ralph said, you might go ahead and do some executive orders and draw scaling back a little bit on some of the green trade initiatives. So we’ll see we go with that. But thanks for the opportunity,

Lalo  20:51

Kim, you are part of the transportation committee. So let me ask you this. This last year there was a few challenges, like, for example, with their cargo shipments. I mean, did your group like deal or address with that and and then, what about I know that we mostly concentrate and talk about shipments or commerce coming into the US, being importers, right? Being brokers. Do you all deal with or work with anything like for shippers or transportation and logistics, freight forwarders going into other countries, such as the EU? More specifically, I want to touch on this, because in December, well, actually earlier in the year, in June, around June, I guess there was a rule in the EU to be able to do kind of like, almost sounds like, you know, advanced filing, you know that you need to report a bunch of different data items in advance of the shipment coming over. And I it sounded like from the news and everything that we were that we were getting, although it was announced early. Some shippers might have gotten surprised, because it certainly came a rule for land shippers in the EU, going into the EU in early December, or something like that. So anyway, I’m just curious what other transportation, if not those two, you know, what else you all may be dealing with in 2024 and maybe coming up here in 2025

22:25

Well, thanks, Lalo, yes, both of those are big issues that the Transportation Committee has been working on. With regard to air freight, there have been two different issues that come to mind. One is congestion at different airports, where the air freight committee and the legislative committee for the ncbfa have been working to bring attention to the need for funding to expand or to redo different airports when it comes to air cargo and the ability to get the trucks in and out. There’s some significant congestion that affects those so that’s one thing they’ve been working on. And when it comes to the air imports, there has been some increases to the ACAs data requirements for air cargo coming into the United States, as well as a requirement to prove an established business relationship. So the ncbfa has been working on that since the discussion of those items, I think mid summer, when those came about, that is something that continues to unfold, along with the enforcement of vague descriptions for cargo. So air cargo has to have a specific types of descriptions to prevent it from being held. So the ncvfa is working on that, making sure that all the members are kept up to date on that information and other things, many other things that the transportation committee is working on or has been impacted by, when it comes to ocean freight, there’s been quite a few things going on, whether it is the drought affecting the Panama Canal that happened earlier this year, or vessels needing to avoid the Red Sea with the Houthi issues and having to go around the keep the port of Africa. There have been quite a few different things going on. And you mentioned the European Union requirements that would be their ICs, two ens filings, the air cargo side was implemented previous years. So the that’s already up and running, the vessel owner, carriers, the VOC C’s started filing for ocean shipments destined to the European Union, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway and Sweden. In June, there was a transition period. And now as of December 4, so earlier um in the at the end of last year, there was an implementation or transition period starting for house filers, where house filers can start filing their level data for shipments destined. You are trans shipping those countries?

Lalo  25:03

Exactly? Yeah. So, okay, so, so I’m glad to hear that. So again, you know, I guess, just with, with going forward for 2025, any what, what should I guess shippers, or anybody in the transportation era, I mean, arena, let’s, let’s, let’s concentrate on that. What we’ll talk a little bit about brokers here, in a little bit, here in a little bit. But in that, in that realm that are in transportation, it like, what are they? What should they be getting prepared? I mean, because I don’t think this should have been a surprise if, like, for example, the EU requirement, I don’t feel like someone should be complaining about it, I guess, because those are data elements that you should normally be filing anyway, like here in the US, we’ve been doing that forever. I’m just wondering, I don’t get to see that, because I’m not even in that, in that business, or do I even have any visibility to that? But what were the challenges and how, or what should they be doing for 2025 to better prepare for stuff like that.

26:03

Well, one really important thing is to pay attention to industry announcements. You know, ntbfa members get the emails that you mentioned at the beginning the Monday morning e briefings with information like this when it comes to preparing if a an Nvo freight forwarder. If you are not a US company, but US companies, would be an nbocc Sending shipments to the European Union where an ICS two is required, then they should be talking internally whether they want to file their own house level data, whether they want the master carrier to file on their behalf, if that’s even an option, and if they’re filing on their own. Do they have their own proprietary software? Are they talking with their software vendors so making sure that they’re planning their business processes and on the programming side to have the ability to do what they want to do? All countries outside of the US seem to be catching on to this manifest data earlier in the supply chain. The US has been doing it for a while, as you mentioned, but now other countries are starting to get on board with that. So a global manifest is not something that should be surprising to anyone, as you said, but keeping up with the announcements of which countries are requiring those is very important to make sure that cargo continues to flow as smoothly as possible. Another manifest that is coming down the pipeline, and has been for a little while, but that US entities should be aware of. If you are a freight forwarder, Nvo, indirect air carrier, then you want to be aware of the electronic export manifest that’s being developed as as well as truckers, truckers and rail carriers also want to be aware of that that is something that will be impacting those different entities where they would need to start filing manifest data electronically. And then also house data will be required electronically.

Lalo  28:04

Thanks. Nice. Thank you. Thank you. Kim, yeah, so, so that’s usually because our podcast concentrates a lot on on trade. We tend to miss a little bit about the transportation, freight forwarding already. I’m glad you’re saying that, because that’s a goal for 2025 for our podcast is to start including a lot more of the logistics, transportation and even supply chain. But thanks, thanks for that information. That was good. So now for everyone else, and of course, you as well, Kim. But so the obvious, I guess, the obvious reasons why, what to me anyway, that Trump may be wanting to raise tariffs, etc, it’s obviously we talk about, you know, like protectionism and, you know, keeping keeping jobs and and the here in the US, you know, not having to rely on on imports as much, etc, so addressing the trade deficit, etc, you know, things like that. So what are the challenges that, I guess, as brokers, you may have in dealing with your customers, like, what have you seen, or what or what do you feel that you may be facing here in 2025 that it’s going to be critical for you to work better with your clients and make sure, I mean forced labor, for example, you all don’t have it’s very hard for you to have visibility to, like, a lot of the information for for your for your clients, much less their supply chain. You know, in other words, like, how do you go 5678, 1015, I mean, I don’t know X number of levels back to figure that out. How do you account for different things like that? So I don’t know, what challenges do you feel you may be facing in 2025, and how, like, what tips can you give to the audience in working with. Their brokers, and if they’re not, and if they are a broker, what can they do to work better with their clients? I don’t know if that’s even a relevant question or not.

JD Gonzalez  30:11

I’ll start off with this one, and I know it’s one of the challenges that we’re having right now, is a lot of the media rhetoric that’s going on right now. So we’re going to have right now, our clients are access a bunch of what ifs, but there’s a lot of uncertainties. You know, we have to really wait to the actual policies have been implemented. But, you know, because we’re going out there doing a lot of work, and then they could change whenever, you know, the policy could be actually becomes in place. So we have to, you know, gear up, but the same time, you know, wait and see, to see where we end up and see how we move forward, considering a lot of the resources that we have available, I know we have in our in our staff alone. We have five different attorneys, we have a transportation we have legislation, we have a general counselor, we have customs counselor, and we have the RAC counselor. So we have all these lawyers that communicate information to us so we can share with our clients, and that’s one of the benefits being part of ncvfa, just to throw that plug in there. But with that being said, it’s just something that we got to work through at the same time make sure that we provide accurate information, because, like I said earlier, the uncertainty, we just don’t know whether it’s going to be policy or we’re gonna have to change up on a whim. And considering we knowing how Trump’s administration works, and a lot of the policy is gonna be a lot more enforcement. Mind, I know the lot of folks gonna be immigration, and I think that’s why the terrorists are being mentioned right now. So we’ll sit there and see, whenever he actually takes office, what direction and what kind of information we provide our clients. So I’ll pass it off to anybody else. I will speak up.

31:44

I’m happy to jump in. Just to add to that, I think really as as as importers and as brokers, we need to be first and foremost informed, and then we need to be prepared, right? So you have to have contingency plans. You have to react not to speculation, but to actual policies. And when those policies take place is if that’s when you start to think about what to do. You’re behind the ball. You need to start thinking about what may happen. No fear of mongering, nothing of that sort. But you just have to be, you know, informed of what’s going on, prepare for what happens. And, you know, if there are rate increases, right, it can bring a lot of challenges. And some of the things that, if I was an importer, or if I’m a broker, you know, speaking to an importer is, is, you know, look at your contracts that you have for the sale of your product. Are you contractually obligated to sell a product at a price, and if there is an increased tariff, are you able to pass that along to your to your purchaser, and and if, if you don’t have, you know, kind of an escape clause for that? Is that something you may want to think about adding on, you know, contracts you’re making right now for the upcoming year. You also want to look at your bonds. If you have an import bond and you may anticipate paying a higher rate of duty, it may affect the ability you know the value of your bond. It may require collateral. It may result in bond insufficiencies. So as your bonds are renewing, you want to get ahead of the game. If you do, you know, see that policy, or have a reasonable belief that policy is coming that is going to increase the duties that you’re going to be paying. The time to maybe look at a possible bond increase would be when you’re when upon renewal, so that you don’t so you can get a voice of some of the issues that may come from, untimely, insufficiency that may come from, from customs. You may want to look at sourcing. You know, if you feel that, hey, I all of my eggs are in this country, and if they get hit with a duty, I am going to be in a tough situation. Now is the time to look at alternate sourcing countries. Alternate sourcing materials. You know, look at first sale pricing. You know, if you’re, if you’re purchasing something that’s destined for the United States, you can take care and you can, you could take advantage of first sale pricing. So there’s many, many things that you can do. And again, since there are an infinite amount, I encourage you as an importer, to speak with your broker. And for all you brokers out there, this is the time, more than ever that you need to show how valuable we are to our clients,

34:41

Ralph, I think you hit things right on the head, especially when you talked about the bonds. We’ve all lived that over the last year or so with the implementation of anti dumping duties aluminum extrusions, we’ve had a lot of importers that were affected by that. We’ve had bonds that have been canned. We’ve had customers that have had to get new bonds. These are the sort of things that people are going to have to be be able to react, to be nimble, be able to jump through all the hoops. Because we’re not going to know about a lot of this stuff until it happens, especially when it comes to things that require programming. So we’ve already struggled, over the last year or two years, with having very short notice on some of the changes that CBP has made that our software vendors that the brokers use to be able to file entries have had a difficult time to react to the changes, and oftentimes Customs has a mandate to implement a program, but they don’t even have the rules around the program to implement it yet. So we’ve really got to keep an eye on that going forward and make sure that we’re prepared to jump through these hoops as they roll out from the new administration, because they may require very quick responses, where in the past, we’ve had the luxury of time to address some of these things.

36:09

And Lolo, if I could jump in and give the export perspective of the increased tariffs, if you take a little bit of what Ralph said and just flip it around to the export side, it applies just the same. So if there are increased tariffs on the import side, we should anticipate and prepare for retaliatory tariffs from those countries. So look at diversifying your supply chain. See what options you have when it comes to the sale and export of the different products that you make and sell, whether it’s agricultural or if it’s in the manufacturing sector, anything could potentially be impacted. So it would be the best idea for exporters and for their freight forwarders to work together to look at different options.

Lalo  36:53

Exactly. Yeah, that’s a that’s a very good point. I mean, if we learned anything, I guess, from the history, I always say, if you don’t want to repeat history, you got to study history, and so we saw that in the smooth Holly act in 1930 so you know, you never know what might happen, right? I mean, I guess we’ll, we’ll try to start wrapping up a little bit here, but let me I do have a few other things that I had on my list here that I want to talk about. The big news this year, starting February one, if I’m not mistaken, you all let me know and correct me if I’m wrong. US brokers need to be held accountable with CBP now with continuing education credits and and be able to take courses that apply or not apply, but that are accredited through five of the accreditors that were selected by CBP, NCB, FAA Education Institute, or otherwise known as nei is one of those entities that accredits courses like ours here at global Training Center, all of ours are actually accredited by two, maybe three accreditors. We like to spread the love a little bit. So, so we have so many courses that that we, we have partnerships with all five of the of the accreditors. So we kind of have to, you know, spread it out a little bit. But anyway, and cbfa being the principal one, because of also your CCS, CES, MCS and mes, you know, all the different accreditations you have in house. Any, anything that anyone might want to talk about that, if, I mean, I know it’s brief, but we just had an episode that aired middle of December on that, you know, so they, I know we exhausted that topic, but any, anything you all may want to add on that, or really just, it’s just, just get it done type thing.

JD Gonzalez  38:43

Yeah, Lalo, I know one of the things, I’m glad you’re bringing this up. Um, and there’s five accreditors. Unfortunately, we’re one of them. And thank God, you know, we’re able to move forward with that. But the same time, there’s still a current frn, not that they’re waiting for, you know, CBP is waiting for any information. So anybody wants to make any comments, there’s an opportunity to go ahead and speak up on that right now, to feel the, you know, the benefit of you know, the members. You know anything that they feel like, you know that maybe was left out, but they’re finalizing some discussions. I know that they’re just, I think it’s January. Just the other day, we were starting off January 1, and we got to start moving forward this first year is 20 credits. I know the the next prime minister be at the full 30 credits. I believe we’re 30 plus, but the but we really want to see how we can move forward. We want to make sure we get some outreach. I was on a call the other day a quiet work group, and one of the comments that was actually made was there’s still some of the brokers that are not are unaware of this. So hopefully, with this podcast being kind of spread, spread this information out and make sure that, you know, we we get those other individuals that are not, that aren’t assuming or not not prepared, and kind of move forward with this, and, you know, kind of promote the NEI at the same time, do the fact that we will be holding the transcript. So we should help out. So we do. Get audited, we can provide that for that for the members as well. So I’m hoping that it’s just a good, a good opportunity. So, and I’m I really feel it’s a it’s a big need, a big plus for us continuing all the changes that are going on. As you can tell by this podcast alone, you see what’s happening right now, and automation is a big push, in addition to other, information is being provided, and it’s just constantly changing. I know the RAC Mike made him a lot of comments that the RAC is going on with a lot of changes with a partner government agency. So there’s a lot of detailed information that really affects us all, and we’re looking forward to see how we can kind of make sure that this benefits all of some

Lalo  40:37

nice, nice one last thing I have is I just want to make sure everybody knows. And speaking of credits, an opportunity to earn, probably mostly, most of your 20 credits, is coming up in April, in Phoenix, Arizona. So we have not we, I’m now part of your group, guys, okay, so the NCP FAA has their annual conference coming up on let me check here, April 6 through the ninth, in Phoenix. At the Help me, guys, oh, Sheraton grand at the wild horse pass, this is in Phoenix, or it’s not literally in Phoenix, but it’s a suburb of Phoenix. But so what’s going on with that? So is this an election year for y’all JD, or you still have another year left? No, no. Okay, you still have another year left. So, but anyway, anything you all want to comment or talk about that that conference coming up, this is a free plug, guys. Thanks. I’ll bring

JD Gonzalez  41:39

up, first of all, one of the comments that we want to really put forward. Last year in Florida, we had record attendance. And then prior to that, in New Orleans, I mean, we’re just we’re really pushing the envelope, and we’re trying to get bigger venues, believe it or not, because I know one of the challenges that we’ll have at this area is it’s on the suburb, it’s on the outskirts, and we want to make sure that we accommodate as many people as we have, and I know that one of the things that we were lacking in Florida, we had to have the surrounding hotels accommodate some of the overflow that we had this time here, it’s going to be a little bit of a challenge. So register now. Register early, and we have a lot of good information and taking consideration, it is an election. The election has already been passed. There’s going to be a lot of changes. So we were keeping up to date. We’re in constant communication with headquarters. They are having a lot of dialog with us about the current changes that are happening right now. Obviously, we have to wait till the actual president takes place and we start working with a new administration, but the same time, we do know there will be some changes. And as you mentioned earlier, that we didn’t talk much about the minimus is really a hot, hot, hot topic. I know that they were having a lot of dialog on that on a weekly basis. A matter of fact, in a couple of weeks, we’re meeting up there in DC to talk to some of the actual procedural changes that we can work through as well to kind of kind of promote me the land borders, because I don’t the air environment. They’re really moving forward with that, but land boards are growing market, so we gotta make sure that we can kind of accommodate and make sure it’s a seamless process for legitimate tree you know. So I’ll go with that. Anybody else wanting comments

43:19

now, I’m happy to jump in. One of the things that’s great about the conference is, you know, you see these three committees. These three committees have specific material that we’re each responsible for presenting in the conference. So So Mike does a great job with with the Regulatory Affairs Committee. Ken does a great job with the Transportation Committee and and we also have the customs committee, so we’re all putting very complete panels together in which, really, we know what the hot buttons are, and we’re trying to anticipate what are the things that you know you as, as custom brokers and forwarders are going to need to be able To be that resource that’s so important, and so you know you don’t get that if you’re not there. And so without a doubt, it’s a great experience. You can network, but you really learn a lot.

Lalo  44:14

You do. Yes, I agree. One of the things that I like to tell people like, when they come and they’re thinking about taking training, like with us, with global Training Center, I always tell them, in the a lot of the information that’s out there, it’s obviously public information is not secret, you know, it’s the it’s, it’s out there for you to learn. But what I tell them that in the time that it takes you to do the research to determine how you’re going to apply something, etc, you know? And, I mean, that’s going to take you weeks where we, like, in our case, global Training Center, can teach you in a day, you know, all that, and it’s and it’s put together well structured and everything. Same thing with you all in three days. You all just take care of an infinite amount of topics. And there’s so many topics that you all cover. Sure. So I always tell people, yeah, I mean, it’s good that you do the research. You think AI is going to help you, and you ask AI to help you with something, it’s just not going to happen. You know, you do need to be in person and start doing things like this, like conferences and training, which, which does help a lot. Anything else from anybody? Michael Kim, any parting words, any any any other information or something that you want to say before we close this out, I think for 2025

45:33

good Council will be to keep your eyes, open, your ears to the ground and expect the unexpected.

Lalo  45:40

That’s a good, good advice. I

45:43

agree with you. Mike 2025 is definitely going to be an interesting year that you should just expect it to be able to turn on a dime. Adaptability is going to be a huge thing. And just one thing to add about the annual conference, ncbfa members can come in to the conference before the conference starts, and attend the quarterly meetings for the ntbfa different committees. So that’s a huge part, a huge benefit of being a member. And so I encourage all current members to come in a little bit early and attend those meetings.

Lalo  46:19

Great, great. Well, thank you all for joining me. Happy New Year. Hopefully y’all had some good holidays here and and enjoyed your your some time off, if you did have some time off, and, and we’re hoping to maybe catch you all in Phoenix. We were in Florida last year, and by the way, what JD said is very true. We We registered somewhat what we thought was early, but we didn’t get a room in the main venue. So if you don’t want to be walking a mile or half a mile or whatever, or driving to the hotel, you take JDS advice, and you know you to get a room in the in the venue is sometimes pretty tough if so many people are going, and it is growing a lot. So but anyway, thank you everyone again, happy New Year, and let’s hope that this brings, if not anything, at least it’s job security, right, all these changes. So anyway, Happy New Year. Thank you all. Thank you very much for joining us. Simply trade is brought to you by the generous contributions of global Training Center. You can follow the show and GTC on LinkedIn or Twitter and other social networks. Make sure you check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today’s show with all the important links. Also make sure that you share this with a friend and subscribe on your favorite streaming platform. We really like hearing from you if you enjoyed the show, make sure to rate and review wherever you listen to this podcast. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the show or would like to sponsor simply trade, or suggest any topic you would like for us to discuss, please contact us via email at simply trade at globaltraining center.com or you can DM us on Twitter at simply trade pop. Thank you again for the privilege of your time. Happy trading. Simply trade is not a law firm or an advisor. The topics and discussions conducted by simply trained hosts and guests should not be considered and is not intended to substitute legal advice. You should seek appropriate counsel for your own situation. These conversations and information are directed towards listeners in the United States for informational, educational, entertainment purposes only, and should not be substituted for legal advice. No listener or viewer of this podcast should act or refrain from acting on the basis of information on this podcast without first seeking legal advice from counsel. Information on this podcast may not be up to date, depending on the time of publishing and the time of viewership. The content of this posting is provided as is, no representations are made that the content is error free. The views expressed in or through this podcast are those of the individual speakers, not those of their respective employers or global Training Center as a whole. All liability with respect to actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this podcast are hereby expressly disclaimed.