The new commissioner of Customs and Border Protection is pledging to balance security with facilitation of trade and to improve a Customs-business relationship he said has become “strained and is in need of repair.”

CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin told the annual conference of the American Association of Exporters and Importers the agency wants to cooperate with law-abiding shippers by easing impediments to legitimate trade so Customs can focus on the minority who pose the most risk.

In the post-September 11 era, many traders have accused the agency of giving short shrift to trade facilitation. But Bersin said he wants to put to rest the notion that trade facilitation and security can't co-exist.

“Security and trade facilitation and promotion are not only not antithetical, they are not even mutually exclusive at this point in the evolution of CBP's relationship with the private sector,” Bersin said. “They go hand-in-hand.”

At Bersin's May 11 confirmation hearing, Senate Finance Committee members said they wanted Customs to pay closer attention to trade promotion. In response to a challenge by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., Bersin provided the committee with eight metrics to use in measuring CBP's enforcement and trade facilitation.

Bersin is still awaiting confirmation. Named to the post under a recess appointment that will keep in his position for a year, Bersin faced a contentious confirmation hearing taken up by questions about his improper documentation of his household help.

At the AAEI conference in New York, Bersin said Customs and the import-export community won't always agree but need to work together. “The deal is that we talk candidly to one another and get issues on the table and begin to repair this relationship,” he said.

If 10 percent of shippers cause 90 percent of the security threats, Bersin said, “We should not be spending 90 percent of our time on the 90 percent of the trade in which we have confidence .... It is only by expediting the movement of the trusted shipper and the trusted traveler rthat we can actually attack and find the needle in the haystack.”

He urged importers and exporters to increase participation in the Customs-Trade Partmership Against Terrorism, which certifies qualified shippers as low-risk, and to support Customs' efforts to improve technology and targeting and to perform more shipment clearance away from borders.

Marianne Rowden, the AAEI’s executive director, said she was pleased by Bersin's pledge of cooperation and looks forward to details. “We’ll take him at his word,” she said. “We're certainly eager to work with him.”