CUSMA review committee is live — and you need a contingency plan for origin now

The committee is real, and the clock is running

Prime Minister Carney’s advisory committee on Canada–U.S. economic relations met Monday. Jean Charest, Erin O’Toole, Lisa Raitt, and a roster of industry leads are now in the room where Canada’s CUSMA posture gets hammered out ahead of the formal six-year review. This isn’t a press release exercise. The agreement has a built-in assessment mechanism, and both the U.S. and Mexico are sharpening their pencils on trade remedy scope, rules of origin interpretation, and dispute settlement.

From the import floor, this means one thing: if your origin claims are coasting on NAFTA muscle memory or incomplete tariff shifts, now is the time to audit them. CBSA has been patient post-CARM transition, but a high-profile trade review tends to increase scrutiny on compliance posture across the board — especially when political attention turns to automotive, steel, aluminum, and anything touching Buy America carve-outs.

What changed between NAFTA and CUSMA that still trips people up

Most importers know the big-ticket stuff: automotive rules of origin got stricter, labor value content came in, and de minimis thresholds shifted. But the operational trap is in how CBSA expects you to substantiate origin claims under the current CAD regime.

Under NAFTA, you could rely on a Certificate of Origin with a blanket statement and reasonable care. CUSMA formalized the certification of origin (no prescribed form, but you still need nine data elements), and more importantly, shifted the burden of proof squarely onto the importer when CBSA comes calling. That means your supplier’s letter needs to tie directly to the tariff shift rule, regional value content calculation, or both — and it needs to survive a CBSA verification request that now runs through the CARM Client Portal, not a fax machine.

If you’re claiming CUSMA preferential tariff treatment and your substantiation still references an old NAFTA certificate, or worse, cites a D-memo interpretation that predates the 2022 HS refresh, you’re sitting on a compliance gap that a review-period audit will find.

The CARM angle: origin claims are now tied to your financial security

Post-CARM, every CAD you file with a preferential tariff claim under CUSMA is a potential flag against your RPP bond or your GST account if CBSA disagrees. The old B3 world let you amend quietly. Now, if CBSA challenges origin and denies the claim, you’re looking at retroactive duty assessment, interest under the Customs Act, and a direct hit to your CARM financial account.

The RPP bond calculation doesn’t explicitly price origin risk, but if you’ve got a pattern of denied claims — especially on goods subject to SIMA duties where the MFN rate is punitive — your bond gets recalculated fast. We’ve seen importers with clean payment history get bond increases because three or four high-value entries got re-rated from free under CUSMA to 6.5% MFN, and CBSA’s risk model flagged the account.

If you haven’t run a full origin review since CARM went live, and you’re filing more than a handful of CADs per month claiming CUSMA preference, that’s a gap. Especially if you’re also claiming CETA or CPTPP on overlapping SKUs and your supplier letters don’t clearly separate the legal basis for each. CBSA doesn’t do you any favors when multiple FTAs could apply — they’ll pick the one that generates duty if your documentation is ambiguous.

What to actually do before the review heats up

Pull a sample of your CADs from the last twelve months where you claimed CUSMA preferential treatment. Cross-check three things:

1. Does your supplier’s certification hit all nine data elements? Certifier name, importer/exporter, tariff classification, origin criterion (A/B/C/D), blanket/single, date, signature equivalent. If it’s a PDF from 2019 that says “NAFTA-originating,” fix it.

2. Does the tariff shift rule still work under current HS? The 2022 HS refresh moved a lot of subheadings, especially in Chapters 84, 85, 87, and 90. If your origin analysis was done under HS 2017 and you haven’t re-run the shift, you might be claiming on a rule that no longer applies to the current classification. Use the HS classification tool or get a ruling if there’s ambiguity.

3. Is your RVC calculation still defensible? If you’re using transaction value method and your supplier’s cost breakdown includes royalties, assists, or packing that weren’t in the original calc, your net cost or transaction value number is off. CBSA will ask for a full breakdown in a verification, and “we think it qualifies” doesn’t hold up.

If you’re importing through Montreal and staging at a sufferance warehouse before distribution, make sure your FIRMS code and warehouse handling at FENGYE doesn’t inadvertently break the direct shipment rule. CUSMA requires goods to move directly from the country of origin, with limited exceptions for repackaging or inspection. If your goods are sitting in a U.S. warehouse, getting relabeled, and then crossing into Canada, that’s a red flag CBSA will spot in an origin review.

The political risk isn’t just about the agreement itself

The other thing this committee signals: trade irritants are going to get oxygen. Softwood lumber, dairy access, Buy American waivers — all of that feeds into the compliance environment. When there’s political pressure to “enforce” trade rules more strictly, CBSA tends to tighten verification cycles and bump up post-release audit activity.

We’ve already seen that with SIMA enforcement on subject goods from China and other named countries. When the political temperature rises, CBSA’s compliance branch gets more resources and more direction to look hard at claims that reduce revenue. Origin claims are in that bucket.

If you’ve got a high volume of duty-free entries under CUSMA and you’re in an industry that’s politically sensitive right now — automotive parts, steel products, anything touching defense supply chains — expect verification letters. The CARM portal makes it easier for CBSA to fire off a request and track your 30-day response window. Miss it, and the claim gets denied automatically.

What good compliance actually looks like here

Good compliance isn’t a binder full of supplier letters you’ve never read. It’s a living process: annual origin audits, documented HS classification rationale that updates with each HS refresh, and supplier agreements that obligate them to notify you if their production process or material sourcing changes in a way that affects origin.

If you’re working with a broker who just files what you send and never questions your origin claims, that’s a problem. A good broker pushes back when the cert doesn’t match the tariff shift, when the RVC math looks thin, or when the product description on the commercial invoice doesn’t align with the HS code you’re claiming preference under.

We do that kind of review as part of normal entry prep. If something doesn’t line up, we flag it before the CAD goes in. That’s the difference between a compliance partner and a data-entry service.

If you want someone to walk through your current origin claims and spot the gaps before CBSA does, get in touch. That’s the kind of audit we run every week.

Source: CSCB