What are Foreign Trade Zones, and why are they considered an “import mode”?
Foreign-trade zones are designated sites licensed by the Foreign-Trade Zones (FTZ) Board (the Secretary of Commerce is Chairperson) at which special Customs procedures may be used. FTZ procedures allow domestic processing involving foreign items to take place in approved FTZ zones. The goods are then treated as if they were outside U.S. Customs and Border Protection territory, thus offsetting Customs advantages available to overseas producers. In April 1995, as the result of inquiries from users, the mode of transport, ‘foreign trade zones’ was added after a Census Bureau investigation. Although FTZ is being treated as a mode of transportation in this dataset, the actual mode for a specific shipment into or out of a foreign trade zone is unknown because Customs does not collect this information.
