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C-TPAT and Cargo Security: Sea Change

In an effort to prevent terrorists from turning container and cargo ships into weapons, Customs is counting on big business to goad partners into improving security through initiatives like C-TPAT.

"If we don't get enough muscle into the initiatives to make people confident, my fear is that the inherent good wisdom [of Customs' voluntary programs] will get discredited," Flynn says. "The trade industry has not come to grips with the fact that, post-event, the things they're doing just aren't going to pass the public confidence test."

And that could mean that, for all the public and private partnerships kumbaya-ing, in the long run, C-TPAT will be nothing more than the groundwork for industry regulations. "Anything is possible," Customs' Perez admits. "I'm not going to say that that isn't something that's a possibility. But there is no serious talk to that end for now. The focus of this program from the get-go has been on self-policing."

APL's Agron, for one, is cheering him on. "We're a Bob Perez fan, a C-TPAT fan, because if C-TPAT fails then we're going to look at government mandates that are devised and defined by people who don't understand security," he says, noting that one law introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last February essentially proposes that 100 percent of all cargo entering the United States be inspected. "Obviously you can't do that," Agron says. "The fact that the law has even been proposed says that we really have to make this work."