Introducing Students to International Trade at Queensborough Community College

This week I had the pleasure of giving a lecture to Business students at Queensborough Community College (QCC) on International Trade. “The conversation about how the things are shipped to stores,” was the best part about the presentation to QCC student, Prince Oparaji. The first activity we did was a collective diagramming of an importation, from the overseas factory to the store, an idea I might add, was given to me by the Senior Partner in my office, William Shayne, Esq.

"I really love the fact that she explained the supply chain management in a clear and easy way. It was a great presentation."

My goal for the presentation was to illustrate to students the relatively complex movement of cargo from overseas to the U.S. I wanted to introduce the students to the players involved in shipping, such as:

Ocean Freight forwarder (1 of 2 “Ocean Transportation Intermediaries”) – in the United States, dispatches shipments from the United States via a common carrier and books or otherwise arranges space for those shipments on behalf of shippers; and processes the documentation or performs related activities incident to those shipments

Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier (2 of 2 “Ocean Transportation Intermediaries”) – a common carrier that does not operate the vessels by which the ocean transportation is provided, and is a shipper in its relationship with an ocean common carrier

Vessel Operating Common Carrier – An ocean common carrier

[the above are defined in The Shipping Act of 1984, 46 USC §1701 et. seq.]

Customs Broker - Customs brokers are private individuals, partnerships, associations or corporations licensed, regulated and empowered by U.S. Customs to assist importers and exporters in meeting Federal requirements governing imports and exports. Brokers submit necessary information and appropriate payments to CBP on behalf of their clients and charge them a fee for this service. [defined by US Customs and Border Protection]

and to get them thinking about the pre-entry requirements, border issues and other liabilities involved with importing certain goods.

"I think it was very well presented, very detailed."

In order to do this, I had a number of items on display that I passed around to students to demonstrate which issues may be raised. A few examples of this included:

1) bracelets - permanently stamped with the word “Mexico” on the inner band (country of origin issue),

2) ceramic cup and banana – believe it or not, a container load of either of these may have enough radiation in them to set off the radiation detection devices set up at the terminal exit of all piers (security of US/weapons of mass destruction issue) - don't worry, in smaller quantities they are not harmful. If they were, they would not be admitted into the US for consumption!

3) legos® – pre-importation certificate of conformity requirements with the Consumer Safety Product Commission (children’s safety and small parts issue)

Following the lecture, I asked students what more they would have liked to have learned about. Each of the topics raised could easily be a multi-day course in and of itself. In future posts however, I will try to address them as it is good review for me as well.

- Rules for importing a product
- Where to get more information
- Career steps to take in direction of working in international trade/how I obtained my job
- Specifics on the tariff (HTSUS)

Questions/comments? Feel free to email me at clark.deanna@gmail.com