Hector Salinas
🇺🇸Ocean freight and importing into the United States
Nineteen years in ocean freight at the Port of Long Beach, first on the carrier side and now as a licensed US customs broker. I work with European exporters selling into the States who find out the hard way that the American customs system resembles nothing they know. The recurring issues: getting an importer number as a foreign company, what a customs bond actually is and why you need one, labelling and marking rules that hold entire containers at the port, and the additional duties that have moved from season to season these past few years. Every one of those has stranded shipments belonging to serious, competent companies. My job on a call is to tell you what has to be settled before the vessel sails. After it sails your options narrow fast, and each one of them has a price.
