The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Japan Customs and Tariff Bureau (CTB) have signed a “mutual recognition arrangement” to align “security standards in international trade partnership programs critical to both countries.”

The agreement recognises similarities and mutual standards between Japan’s Authorised Economic Operators (AEO) programme and the US’ Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) programme.

The two said that “the arrangement acknowledges that CTB and CBP will accept the security status of members of each other’s programmes,” with the expected result of reduced supply chain security validations conducted by the administrations.