Leveraging Trade Law Expertise Amidst Policy Changes

Machine Operated Script:

Annik  00:08

Music, hello. Simply trade listeners. Welcome to the news roundup for another session, a very special session, because we have a guest, like every other episode, we do have a guest, but this one’s a special guest, and I have a special introduction for this guest, because I was scrolling through her LinkedIn. You know, as I do, just researching stalking, as you would say,

00:30

are you gonna do my rap? Oh, I was going

Annik  00:33

to do my rap until I came. So I’m a huge Swiftie, so I had to transform, well, we had to transform your rap into I know, so I’m I was very excited, so Lalo, well, I was gonna rap, and then Lalo came on, and he’s like, panic, why don’t you just do a swift version? And I’m like, Lalo, seriously, I didn’t even think about that. How are you smarter? Like, how are you telling me this right now? So love it. I have to read it, yes, so I’m reading you to chorus and because the whole thing is just too long, I know it’s a lot of people tomorrow. Okay, I

Jen Diaz  01:07

do highly encourage everyone to get their own rap on chat. GPT, I want this to go viral. This needs to be a thing like, why haven’t you and Lalo and Andy done this yet? I challenge you to get this done today.

Annik  01:20

We’ll do it. We’ll do it. Actually, I’m on vacation tomorrow, but after my vacation, I will do it. Okay, so the chorus goes, so by the way, um, well, afterwards I’ll, I’ll let them know who you well, you’re literally this. So Jen, Jennifer, navigating the seas of change in the world of trade. Her expertise reigns from the shores of South Florida to global lands. She’s the defender of compliance with justice in her hands, leading Diaz trade law with a vision so bold in the story of trade, her chapter unfolds outro in the heart of Miami under the sun’s glow, Jennifer Diaz, unnamed trade winds, will forever know through the rhythm of loss in the dance of the trade, a lasting impact by her hands is made. I love it. So guys, if you haven’t guessed by now, this should be very obvious. We have Jen Diaz. Jennifer Diaz on the podcast today. She is an attorney, lawyer, right? Yeah, have your bio here too. Sorry. Okay, so, so Jennifer Diaz, a chambers ranked attorney and founder of DS trade law. Oh, my God. And you know what, there’s so much more, because I read your entire bio on your page and all that you’ve done, and I encourage everyone to go look at it. And especially if you do need an attorney, she will probably, should probably be your first choice here, depending on what you need. But in the trade industry, I see you do a lot of CBP FDA, if you have any issues with that, definitely there’s your contact. We’re giving it to you here for free. After that, it probably won’t be free, but here you’ll get some information. You get the news for free here, okay, ladies, so we’re giving you some you go

Jen Diaz  03:12

to the doctor for free. The lawyers are the same thing, you know? I know the lawyers same bucket, not free.

Annik  03:18

Very, very true. Yeah, no. I mean you’re, you’re about to save people’s lives. So it’s not, yeah, it’s not in a different way, right?

03:27

Yeah, lives, and all the lives

Annik  03:29

that agreed, and I would have to say, so I don’t know, have you gotten busier so far, like with this year, with the changes that you know, interesting is,

Jen Diaz  03:38

I personally see an interesting shift where there’s so much uncertainty right now, or there I find businesses either taking a pause or examining, exploring, and most of the calls we’re getting are companies trying to explore the US market, which is so interesting, like, from what I’m hearing, it’s working in that companies are saying, all Right, what do I really have to do to produce in the United States to avoid this tariff thing? Let me explore that and see what that’s going but what’s interesting is it’s, it’s like, not too late and too late all at the same time, because it doesn’t take two minutes to start an entity and to start a new manufacturing operation. It takes a while to get that going, but I find more businesses exploring that, and more calls with that as an underlying tone than I’ve heard in a very long time. So that new agenda is setting with that America first trade policy. It’s it’s a it’s interesting, because that is setting with foreign entities saying, all right, if Canada and Mexico aren’t safe, then what is safe? And what does it take for me to explore the US market? So it’s it is interesting, but what I’m not seeing personally are companies that are necessarily pulling the trigger to, for example, get out of Mexico or get out of Canada or get out of China or get out of the regions that they’re already in. And pulling the trigger to completely shift their supply chains. I find more of the exploratory calls like our exclusions coming back, or if the tariffs come back, what’s it going to look like timeline wise? And there are so many questions with people trying to understand what how they should be pricing and what it should look like, and how much the uncertainty is going to cost them. Those are a lot of the calls that we’re seeing trying to explore that uncertainty with clients and get a glimpse for their particular industry, for their commodities, making sure they actually know how their products are classified no matter what. We know that customs is ready to pounce on tariffs. They now know the process. They know the procedure, and we know that if needed, and if February 1 is our magical deadline for tariffs to start, for example, from Canada and Mexico, customs is not going to hesitate in implementing whatever HTS is are going to be impacted by those tariffs. And we know we’re going to have an immediate counts, and it’s going to be really quick in terms of implementation to get it done. So it’s going to be really interesting to see what time frames are set, which everyone has to comply with, and what that looks like. And that’s a lot of what we’re hearing and what the rationale is for tariffs. And then what are the lawyers going to do? Likely Sue, because, you know, lawyers like to sue. So litigation coming up thereafter. I mean, we have hundreds of clients in the 301, lawsuit, and whether or not there’s an extension of that or something else, you know, like, who knows what happens next in regards to how the tariffs are implemented, and then, were they implemented properly? Is it the right mechanism? Should they be implemented that way? That there are hot topics, and we don’t know much until more happens. So after February 1, that’ll be an interesting conversation. And then thereafter, after the President gets back reports from all the agencies that he’s asked for reports on, what’s the effectiveness of usmca, what’s the effectiveness of all of our anti dumping and countervailing duty orders? What’s the effectiveness of our current de minimis exception that we have? Like, what’s happening with that? How is it being used? Give me a report on what’s going on. Like, there are so many reports that are going to be forthcoming. It’s going to be really interesting to see what the feedback is in all of those reports, and what this particular administration thinks should be done as a result of that, and what impact we see thereafter. So right now, everybody’s guessing, and you know, it’s your dollar guess is as good as anybody else’s dollar guess. So I’m, I’m happy to make dollar bets with you. Annie, dollar bets are my bet, just $1 I

Annik  07:41

saw that on your LinkedIn. You’ve made a bet, and it was on the Cuba

Jen Diaz  07:46

and Columbia. Made $2 bets, and I got two. I got two virtual dollars because people doubted me twice, and I’ve won twice so far. So one was related to Cuba 100% in regards to the designation that Biden removed, and then Trump reinstated immediately about Cuba being a state sponsor of terrorism. That was day one went away for Biden’s administration on the last, you know, the last few days. And then I said, I bet you $1 that’s going to come back within the next 30 days. I gave him up to 30 days. I didn’t expect day one so and then I got some pushback. No, no, maybe not. It was like $1 and I got that dollar, the second dollar was for Columbia, because that was interesting, too. When news pushed out about Colombia and the plane that was intended to land in Colombia, that the President said, No, I want to put a halt to that. And President Trump immediately was on truth social saying, don’t accept this plane 25% tariffs are forthcoming. And I said, I will happily bet $1 that that plane will be accepted to avert 25% tariffs. And what was so interesting to me is I did not expect or anticipate. And this is where I wasn’t necessarily certain about how fast the background was running, because this was a Sunday a Sunday evening, so to get a CSMs, one of those cargo system messages from customs on a Sunday evening, already implementing part of that national security instruction to now more acutely monitor, for example, Colombian as a result of that message happening that fast, that was an interesting tell, that should tariffs have to be implemented. That’s also going to happen pretty damn quickly. There’s not going to be a pause like everything’s in place to get it done. So it’s not an empty threat, it’s a it’s a threat, but the threat has leg. Yeah,

Annik  09:46

and that’s another question. So right now, you say there’s a lot of uncertainty, and I’ve seen this. I mean, I’ve talked to so many people, and there’s just everyone says the same thing, we don’t know, we don’t know, we don’t know, and certainly no one really knows. But how should someone prepare in the industry? Because you could say, Okay, we all don’t know, like, we don’t know what we don’t know. So we don’t have to do anything because we don’t know, right? I mean, this whole thing. But as you, as we’re seeing with Colombia, done so fast, so quick, these terrors would have been implemented immediately. I mean, it would be detrimental for kind of everyone, I would say, not just Columbia. I mean, the state too, in a sense, right?

Speaker 1  10:25

But it would be a real impact, for sure, yeah,

Annik  10:29

and maybe on coffee too. That’s what I think of when I think of

Jen Diaz  10:33

people flowers that come into South Florida, and agricultural products as well. So for sure. I mean, people have lists, and what that was one of the first things that started going around, you know, the social scene was, what is the census? You know, what’s the census data about what our top imports are from Columbia, what products would be impacted? Those are the easy data points to pull that people pull immediately and share. And so, okay, what industry should be ramping up? You know? Yeah, and we

Annik  10:59

couldn’t even cover it. I was like, I send Lalo text. I’m like, Okay, let’s get the news going tomorrow. We need to talk about Columbia. And then I come into the office, and it’s like, okay, it’s already really like, oh no no. It’s like, I really wanted to talk about it, but

Jen Diaz  11:16

just talk about it anyways. And I think there’s a lesson learned within it. And I think it’s, you know, the lesson itself is the threat itself is not necessarily an empty one, but it is a big one, and it does have a big, lasting impact, and I think it’s going to be used a lot, and there’s a lot, you know, many can talk about the impact of that and then what they feel about it, or so on, but it’s not here to talk about feelings. I’m just here to talk about fact and what’s happened and what could happen and what potentially is out there, itself and and the idea of tariffs itself is not just rhetoric. It is the bottom line. It’s, it’s an implementable item that was implemented in 2018 and I very much see it happening again, the exact when, if swears wise, we don’t know. And anybody who says, I have an exact understanding of exactly what commodities and exactly what rates and exactly what mechanism, I mean, that’s not truthful. But let’s talk about PrEP steps and what you can do. Every business should, at a minimum, have the core customs compliance elements in place now, and understand, for example, how many SKUs they have, how many HTS is they’re dealing with, how they can look up those HDS and understand which products would be implemented and and have an impact immediately. We know that if a tariff is implemented, it’s going to be implemented by your Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which means, if you don’t know what your HTS is are for your product, and you haven’t triple validated that, that’s the right HTS, that’s a bear spank, minimum starting place. And what I love and recommend is that everybody have that imports period. You have to have your ACE account, your automated commercial environment. It’s a free customs account, and there’s zero excuse to not have it, and you get access to all of your juicy, sexy trade data. And trade data, yes, it is sexy. There’s a lot of juicy, juicy data within there. And you can get your own fancy, schmancy reports and so on. And then make your fancy excels and come up with the data elements that that matter there, we come up with our own fancy schmancy ace report cards that we do where we can analyze some risk and look at things like all, right, how many HTS is have you used? You know you what are your values? Are they right? You know is, what are your countries of origin? What are your countries of export? What are your how many manufacturers are you really dealing with? Do you have anti dumping as a potential issue there as well? Because, I mean, 25% tariffs, for example, are nothing in comparison to 700% anti dumping and Countervailing Duties like that’s a whole different ball game that puts companies out of business, you know. And if you’re not prepared for that, that’s way worse. So more anti dumping and countervailing duties and those crazy rates that come up that That, to me, is an even bigger risk in regards to scope and things to look at. So when you talk about your underlying customs compliance elements, the core is your classification, your valuation, your country of origin, your Free Trade Agreement usage, your intellectual property rights. Are you do really internally, have your IPR set up, and what that means is, Have you registered with the USPTO, for example, for your trademarks, and then have you recorded that brand with customs. Do you have all your licensing agreements in place? Have you taught customs how to understand if one of your competitors, or somebody down the line, a horrible person, is counterfeiting on your brand? You know? Have you? Have you given customs the secret sauce and recipe to know what’s baked, not fake, like the core, basic bare bones element? Confidence. You know of customs compliance. Are you dealing with forced labor? You know? Have you? Do you have your your mechanisms in place to ensure none of your raw materials are coming from anyone who’s utilized forced labor within their supply chain? What are you doing to ensure that that’s not the case for you? Like having these things in place, because when you have a forced labor detention, a tariff is not your problem anymore. You’ll care about it. Tariff. I mean, getting through that Poor’s labor detention is brutal. It’s not a cake walk. It’s not a pleasure in any regard. So it’s like not forgetting about the core elements of the ways in which customs can shut your business down are essential and making sure you’re prepared. Period, we were talking about record keeping with someone else today, and it’s like if customs was to audit you and ask for records, how many businesses would say, Oh, let me call my broker. Like, how many importers truly have their records together? So one of the pro tips I like to give for records that you don’t necessarily think of is to keep your records by entry number, because most companies would keep a record by a bill of lading, a commercial invoice, a PO a company that they’re doing business with, some other something recognizable to them, but customs doesn’t know any of that. If customs is going to ask you information, they’re going to ask by entry number. So you keep records in a mechanism where you can respond to customs, not in a mechanism that’s comfortable for you, and a mechanism that’s comfortable if you get asked by customs, because then it’s comfortable for everybody. So say, you know, PO number, commercial invoice number, dash entry number, and putting that entry number as a field that you can search and then get records. The other fun element is when you’re thinking about records, think about everything from the PO to your commercial invoice, your packing list, your 3461 your 7501 your entry summary, all of the fun docs, your bill of lading, or your airway bill and your proof of payment. Like everything together, we call all those fun documents, like your a one, a list. You know, the records that you should be keeping itself. You know, those are the basic bare bones things that you have to look at, and then how much pricing you can bear and what that actually looks like. Are you going to shift your supply chain? Are you going to move production anywhere else? Do you have the ability to change your country of origin? And we get a lot of questions on All right, if I change this part, is that enough of a substantial transformation? Am I really transforming my product? Does it? Customs has a wonderful binding rolling system that I love. And I mean generically, you get your 30 day responses for classification related questions, sometimes FTA also origin questions. It depends. Sometimes those are quicker, but depends on how complex we’re talking. You know, I’ve seen some value binding rulings that can take a long time to get issued. So it depends on how complex of a question you’re asking customs is, but in a best case scenario, a 30 day response time isn’t bad to get some conclusive information. Yeah,

Annik  17:59

and, and and I think what you’re mentioning right now is something that, you know, these people should be doing now, even when they’re not sure what’s happening. Because looking at, I mean, you know, there’s been a lot of things that have been implemented already that hasn’t impacted the trade industry, but has impacted other industries, but such as, just recently, it was a regulatory freeze, you know, that was really talked about, and I’m not sure if you had to kind of deal with it as well, but, but it was kind of knocked down, right so right now it’s not really implemented and, and I feel like that says something. I’m not sure how trade people will see this, but to me, I’m like, Well, I mean, we should be prepared. But we also don’t know if, if he issues those tariffs, you know, is this going to be set, or Will something happen, just like it did with the regulatory freeze? You know,

Jen Diaz  18:50

that’s kind of where we expect potential litigation. Also, like, I wouldn’t be surprised if whatever tariff is issued, there is some sort of lawsuit, just like there was for that. So there is going to be some pounds back. I mean, these are a lot of changes, and you’re going to see both sides of the coin, so not everything’s going to be, you know, an easy, implementable change with no objection to that change.

Annik  19:11

Yeah. And I want to touch on something as well, because now, I mean, we talked a lot on the tariffs, and I think what you the points you made were valid, and they’re gonna help so many, hopefully, hopefully not, that you have already done those things, and you can just check mark everything she’s saying. But if you’re missing one, go back and do that right now. But one thing you have shared too on you shared truth social a post from President Donald Trump about the external revenue service, and so I saw you had a little funny remark. It was funny to me because you, you know, you question it a lot. Do you still question it to that extent? Or because I we had talked to someone else, not sure who I talked to about about it, but she meant. That there is, there could be opportunities from it, like, in a way, you know, you can see negatives and positives in any sense of thing. But she kind of twisted it to where you’re like, well, maybe we could use something like this in placement of another agency to, I don’t know it was a whole thing

Jen Diaz  20:16

interesting. I mean, I think in terms of the functionality of the external revenue service, at least as it was originally presented, was the functionality that Customs has been doing and is currently doing in terms of collecting tariffs. So in terms of the functionality, if we’re just talking about the functionality of collecting tariffs, then Customs has been renamed in the past, renaming US Customs and Border Protection, the external revenue service. It’s an easy name change. You know, that’s not a difficult task. So I mean, if you want that, that that’s a lot different, and I think easier to accomplish than starting something new and shifting that functionality from CBP to a new agency. I think that’s a lot harder to actually implement. So it’s just saying, if you want to just change the name of the agency that’s doing the function, just change the name. Yeah,

Annik  21:06

it’s because, I think it was that CBP has a lot, you know, immigration has become like such an overbearing thing for CBP that trade has become a little bit of on the back burner in that sense. And I think having another

Speaker 1  21:25

that I see, I can see that in terms of bringing it up. I like that

Annik  21:29

to make sure that immigration has one is one part, and then trade is becoming more of a focus, because trade has been so neglected and neglected child, kind of here, and that was kind of the viewpoint of it, which I was like, Huh, that’s, that’s, that makes a little bit of sense. Because when I was reading it, and then I was seeing a lot of posts about it, it didn’t, doesn’t make sense. People were like, oh, have you ever heard of IRS? You know, people were making comments and, well,

Jen Diaz  21:59

IRS obviously completely different functionality in terms of taxes versus customs duties, but so interesting in regards to CBP Border Patrol function and the immigration related impact of CBP, and like the Border Patrol side versus the trade related side. And I’ve said I was very, very curious. I mean, after 911 a lot changed, as you can imagine and anticipate, in terms of information sharing between the agencies and the National Security impact, which makes sense, but the trade related functions versus the immigration related functions are so different, and they should have to me like different leaders. I personally like that element, and I would like that thought process of treating trade separate and apart from immigration. I would be pro that on a personal level. I think that that personally makes more sense to me in terms of having trade be trade run by trade and and strictly trade versus the immigration side, because I do think they are incredibly different, but there are some, you know, the intersecting links, but no different than agencies working together. So I I can see that, and I respect it, and I understand that thought process. And I personally would have loved to have been practicing earlier, when they were separate functionalities, to personally have that experience, to compare the difference between the then and now. So I think you’ve definitely got some old timers that will be able to say, I remember when you know they were separate functionalities. And here’s what the deal is. So that that’s a good a good post functionality for Lalo and Andy at the next conference, they can go around town and say, All right, to the tunnels of the world you were here, when

Annik  23:43

that is actually, you know what? I’m gonna mark that down because, I mean, honestly, I didn’t even know. But, I mean, I would have never thought that trade and immigration would be in the same boat.

Jen Diaz  23:57

And when you think about 911 it definitely stirred everybody, right? So there were a whole lot of changes, and then it was the information sharing and the, I’m sure, a lot more than I have no idea about, in terms of national security, and the impetus to put everything together. So like, it’s crossing the border and it’s people and or cargo, we want the right people to have that information to be able to stop whatever the threats are. Yeah. Okay, it makes sense in that regard, but in regards to information sharing and national security and threats. But I mean the trade functionality and the tariffs and the trade compliance and the trade enforcement is really just separate, such a separate function than people coming into the country. Yeah,

Annik  24:39

and you know what we have, who we haven’t touched on, is China. I quickly want to go into China. You know, we’ve seen, I mean, we, I promise you, there was not one episode last year where there was not China met where we did not mention China.

Speaker 1  24:55

You might be doing your job if you didn’t talk about China a whole lot of it. I was like,

Annik  24:59

oh. I don’t even want to bring it up. And, you know, Andy was just every time, like they’re playing hardball. I mean, he said that, I think, like, if I counted last year, probably 50 times.

Jen Diaz  25:10

You remember the phase one deal, phase this deal, and there was not a whole lot of compliance going on. So it’s going to be interesting. It’s, I

Annik  25:18

mean, so I’m just wondering what’s your standpoint right now, where’s China standing? Do you think they’re kind of leveled with Mexico and Canada? Are they worse off? You know, there’s the whole tick tock situation. I brought this up last podcast, and I said, I do think, even though it’s not trade related at all, it’s trade related right now, I think I I truly think that that’s just what it is. Everything is just connecting. And there can’t be a trade deal if there’s not a tick tock deal. And so it’s just all connected, which is wild, because if you’re not in trade industry, you would have never thought of this, but now we do. So what is your kind of standpoint on that? Currently,

Jen Diaz  25:56

when we think about China, everybody, you have so many different aspects to think about, when it comes to tariffs, when it comes to anti dumping, countervailing duties, when it comes to forced labor. I mean, there’s so many different elements, and we’ve seen a lot of China related instances when you’re dealing with EPA cases, or, you know, we just did fun videos my office, where, how do you say EPA? You know, how do you say uflpa, you know, some you Fauci, you know, I say Iapa, I say EAP, you know, like everybody says, all of our fun, crazy acronyms a different way. So that could be another fun one to go around town. How do you say this, you know, and get everybody’s version of what’s your version? Um, but look, China is always going to be the elephant in the room. It’s not going away. There’s still a powerhouse. There’s still going to produce but what we’ve seen is a lot of Chinese investment in other countries. So we’ve seen, for example, like, I think there was a big shock wave through the trade community when King Tom had their forced labor issue. And in reality, it’s Chinese ownership of a factory in the Dominican Republic producing aluminum, and they went through a big E A, P, A, EPA, however you say your your EPA cases, and were successful in that realm, but then all of a sudden, hit with a forced labor case. And people were like, wait a minute, but this is Dominican Republic. This isn’t China. And this is when people start saying, Oh no, there is a forced labor impact. That’s not necessarily just a China related impact. And I think when it comes to Chinese ownership of entities and other countries, we’re seeing that heavily scrutinized, and we’ve seen that in the news. We’ve seen that when anybody’s dealing with customs enforcement. I don’t think that’s going to go away. I think that’s going to be even more scrutinized, especially over the next four years. So we’re going to see where that leads, because China has spent a very long time getting ownership of all sorts of factories all over the world. So there’s a lot more production going on. And we’ve been going back and forth saying country of origin has nothing to do with who owns the facility. It is where the actual production is occurring. And we can’t forget that, but now there’s going to be more to the who owns it. I mean, it’s interesting, and we’re going to, I think, see more of that. I’ve had a big, long standing misunderstanding, I guess, and I would love for somebody to give me the deets and help fill it in, but I don’t understand why in the United States we allow foreign importers of record, and we’ve seen this utilized as an exception forever, and I don’t personally get it like if you have a Customs bond, have an entity and have a US agent, you can be a foreign entity and be an importer of record for customs purposes, for clearance of your goods. I’ve seen many entities utilize this exception, which you can’t blame them. It’s a wonderful exception to utilize. But now, if you’re customs and this entity has a liability and has a debt for you, you have the amount of the bond to collect, but anything in excess of that are you really going to go to whatever foreign country to collect? So imagine that being for China, for example. So it’s if you give any exception to a country that is so apt at finding exceptions and utilizing them to their advantage, they’re very much going to so I see this as the time to look at loopholes that are being used, like de minimis, which is being used for bad things. I mean, nobody can say that. They are 100% certain that no one has ever used de minimis to do anything wrong. I mean, that’s not true. Everybody knows that the de minimis exception has led to. To valuation errors, anti dumping issues, counterfeit issues, drug issues and fentanyl. I mean, the list continues. So what changes are going to be made for that so that nobody can, as we say, lie, cheat or steal and utilize this exception to do something nefarious? How big of a change is that going to be let’s see, because if you go back, you know, from 800 to $200 is that really going to make a difference? If somebody is going to import drugs, they’re going to try to import drugs, regardless of the $200 so what’s going to be the difference? How are we going to really handle that? And I don’t have answers to that, but I do think all of these are similarly China related, Mexico related, all sorts of related conversations for all of these countries. So we have a lot of difficult questions and a lot of really difficult answers that I think we’re all really, you know, staring at the computer screen and true social and Twitter and all the social media channels to figure out what’s going on, to stay at the front lines of of all the impacted changes we expect to see. But if anybody explicitly says they are very, very clear on exactly what will happen on exactly what date and exactly what time and exactly what countries and exactly what commodities, that’s just it’s 100% inaccurate. It’s not possible right now, there’s going to be a lot of uncertainty. And I think all of us are a lot better when we have certainty. You know, everybody can game plan and come up with pricing. So I would say, if you have flexible pricing, who has flexible pricing, like when you buy something on Amazon, are you going to say, I accept you to change the price by the two days you ship it to me. I mean, who’s going to accept that? Nobody’s going to be happy with that. So it’s, it’s, it’s a tough world to be in, in supply chain when you don’t necessarily have the certainty that everybody wants, and where it’s not immediate, you know, where you may place an order, and then how many months does it take to make that particular item and then get that item to you and to your door. I mean, it’s, every supply chain is a little different, but some lead times are six months. You know, in six months, a world can change, like, how do you negotiate pricing for six months later, it’s, it’s a brutal somebody is going to lose,

Annik  32:15

no, for sure. I mean, whether it’s the customer or the, you know, the supply or, you know, the supplier, whoever. I think we all the points you just said. I think everyone is feeling those very valid that’s

Jen Diaz  32:30

why we’re looking at Incoterms also, and thinking about, you know, or do you want your supplier to take the risk of the supply chain, you know? Do you want to look at a GDP potential Incoterm where your supplier has to be the importer, and you still have the ability for a foreign entity to be the importer until that exception is closed. So it’s a thought process.

Annik  32:48

So there’s a lot of things these companies or, you know, suppliers have to look at, and should look at, right, to prepare themselves and to see, what can I do to, you know, lose the least amount of money. I mean, it’s really, when it comes down to it, it’s all about money here. Get a lawyer. Probably right, that’s if you don’t have a lawyer right now. I mean, you need an advisor. You need someone that knows what they’re doing. And this is not a marketing episode either. But I think when it comes to all of this. You know, as a company, you can’t, you’re not going to be able to handle it on your own. You need someone who’s working in the field and who understands you know what could potentially happen and how you could potentially get out of it. And I’m so grateful for all your expertise on this episode, because,

Jen Diaz  33:38

I mean, there’s, there’s more things to talk about. There are always more things to talk about. We are doing a free webinar and navigating tariff challenges on February 13. If anybody’s interested in that. It’s on our Dias trade law site and our upcoming events. And we’ll, we’ll record it as well. And we’re going to talk about things like FTC, duty drawback, changing your Incoterms, tariff engineering, country of origin changes for sale, duty deferral, moving your manufacturing. So all the things we talked about today, plus a little bit more in terms of things that everyone is thinking about. And in addition to getting your compliance straight right now, while you have a little bit of breathing room, while you’ve got that uncertainty, this is the time to really get compliance in check, to really check out what you’ve been doing, and if you’ve been doing anything wrong, get it fixed before more uncertainty comes. And once that certainty is here, if you’ve got some bad stuff in the past, that’s it’s time to clean it up, because you want your business acquired. Some people, usually we see that like, during due diligence, like, but I’m not happy with x. And it’s like, well, before you acquire that company, make that company, fix x, you know, yeah, so it’s a good time to get to just get your your house in order.

Annik  34:56

Well, I love that you mentioned free webinars. We always like to, um. Advertise some free stuff here. And you did mention, you know, we talked on how the importer and the broker kind of need communication, right with the entry, like filing your entries and stuff, and, you know, handing your all your information over if you get audited, like you need that information. And on that note, we also have a free webinar, which is called the importer’s guide to maximizing your customs broker strategic value. And so it’s kind of that connection with the importer and the broker that you earlier talked on. So if you guys are interested our listeners, you know, Jen has a free webinar, definitely tune in. Ours is not on the same date as February 17. Won’t class. You can attend both. Just sign up, and you know, you’re gonna be the master of trade, hopefully, and you’re gonna come out of this stronger. That’s really what we want for all of our listeners, out of, you know, the simply trade news roundup and really our entire podcast. And we’re so thankful to have people on like you, Jen, Jennifer, and thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you back next week.

36:05

Bye, pleasure. Thanks so much. Thank

Lalo  36:08

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 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@globaltrainingcenter.com or you can DM us on Twitter at simply trade pod. Thank you again for the privilege of your time. Happy trading.