U.S., Mexico negotiating to set up customs port in Kansas City

KLTV News ^ | November 16, 2005 | n/a

[hedgetrimmer]

The port will be located on Mexican sovereign territory:

Meanwhile, SmartPort negotiated with the Mexican Customs service to locate a facility in Kansas Cityon Mexican sovereign territoryto clear exports to Mexico, thus avoiding clogged boarders. This will be the first in the nation.

And it will "test barriers to trade" like sovereign borders and constitutional laws, no doubt.

SmartPort will soon manage demonstration shipments to measure current inland trade processing practice, test technologies that make inland trade processing possible, and discover barriers of all kinds (regulatory, procedural, infrastructure) that impede inland trade processing.

http://www.southern.org/ideabank/global/trade/printer-friendly/mo2.shtml

[hedgetrimmer]

The Mexican government is committed to the project. One stumbling block, however, is that by Mexican law brokers must be part of the operations. Most Mexican broker facilities are on the U.S. (Laredo, Texas) side of the border. They are legal entities on the Mexican side, but are performing most of their work on the U.S. side. There is still a need for drayage, since many U.S. carriers don't use their trucks into Mexico, just trailers. The Mexican brokers must take possession of the freight in order to have it move. Smart-Port is very aware of the need and has been proactive in meeting with the Nuevo Laredo Customs Brokers Association, among others.

http://www.logisticstoday.com/sNO/6656/iID/20895/LT/displayStory.asp

[DumpsterDiver]

Thanks for those posts, hedgetrimmer. If you're interested, there's a new thread about this at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1529526/posts.