USA looks to strengthen foreign port security assessment

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has conducted an assessment of the US Coast Guard’s Foreign Port Security Programme and concluded, in a 50+ page report, that it could:

– More consistently assess security in countries that don’t allow port visits.

– Share assessment information with other agencies working on supply chain security, and

– Coordinate with the State Department on strengthening foreign port security.

The report notes that the Coast Guard has assessed the security of foreign maritime ports since 2014 but due to the pandemic it had to suspend its country assessment visits during fy 2020 and 2021 with the programme resuming in May 2021.

This new GAO assessment has implications for the ports involved – including those countries that resist port visits – and as such its principal findings are worth noting.

On the issue of countries that don’t allow port visits, the GAO notes that the Coast Guard had started using alternative approaches to assess these countries but that this tactic has lacked consistency. GAO contends that by fully documenting procedures for using alternative approaches consistency can be improved with a commensurate boost to security.

On the point of sharing information with other agencies the report states:

“The program documents the results of its foreign port assessments in various reports. However, as of September 2022, it had not disseminated its most comprehensive report (known as its annual report) to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal agencies that may have a vested interest in receiving it. For example, it had not shared them with CBP, even though it is required to assess the information in its supply chain security efforts. By sharing its annual reports with CBP and other federal agencies, the Coast Guard could better support its “whole of government” approach for securing the U.S. supply chain.”

In the final analysis, GAO comes up with six main recommendations for executive action which can be viewed here. Combined they are expected to lead to a more rigorous approach to foreign port security assessment.

The spirit of these recommendations is basically to use with greater positive effect internal resources and to achieve a higher level of coordination and capacity building resulting in a better overall assessment of maritime security in the context of the US supply chain.