Although more than 500 million maritime containers move around the world each year, accounting for 90 per cent of international trade, only 2 per cent are inspected. Strengthening customs and immigration systems is essential.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Last year, customs officials screened only five percent of the 11 million cargo containers entering the United States. That rate is both unacceptable and dangerous to our national and economic interests.
Today, barely 5 percent of all containers coming into the United States through our ports are scanned.
There are more than one hundred thousand ships at sea carrying all the solids, liquids and gases that we need to live.
Ninety percent of what we wear, we eat, we consume is carried by ships... Container ships carry a vast amount of stuff.
Evidence points out that if you raise tariffs too much it will increase smuggling.
Our marine terminals are invaluable commerce infrastructure, not only to our country but also for the many foreign manufacturers who sell primarily in the U.S. market.
It's important to focus on how we can strengthen international trade.
All those trucks and barges that carry our goods to port are vital connections to the only force which can balance our trade deficit: export. We must keep doing what we do best if we are going to get America out of the red.
You can't tell what's aboard a container ship. We carried every kind of cargo, all of it on view: a police car, penicillin, Johnnie Walker Red, toilets, handguns, lumber, Ping-Pong balls, and IBM data cards.
Seven million ship cargo containers come into the United States every year. Five to seven percent only are inspected - five to seven percent.