The European Union has told US Homeland Security officials it will not meet demands for 100 per cent container x-ray screening because it is too much to pay for, reports American Shipper.
Amortising investment in new facilities and paying for extra staff would come to an extra $500 per box charge to shippers using the Southampton pilot project as an example, said the EU customs chief's official letter protest, then adding that this amounted to a non-tariff barrier against trade.
In a letter to US Customs commissioner Ralph Basham, EU customs chief Robert Verrue said the US law demanding 100 per cent scanning was passed without estimating what would be passed on to foreign ports and the private sector.
Mr Verrue also said the x-ray scheme was flawed because it ignored chemical and biological weapons as well as bulk, ro/ro, ferry and other vessel modes.
Christopher Koch, president of the World Shipping Council, recently told a US congressional committee that US Customs is spending $500,000 a month on communications charges just to transmit large data files to US-based analysts.
Multimodal terminals costs would be higher as they handle rail and vessel transshipment while Southampton is mostly a ship-truck port, said Mr Verrue. Feeder vessel and rail transfers complicate matters because they deliver in big bunches, requiring far more services and equipment to cope with immediate scanning and stacking.
EU ports ship 2.6 million US-bound TEU annually of the 36.5 million TEU it ships to the rest of the world. Only 23 of Europe's 64 container ports ship more than 10,000 TEU to America.
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