[TIPS] 90 Days Until 2027: Can You Back Up Your USMCA Certificates? (Podcast)

A New Series Begins: 90 Days Until 2027

Why wait until January to fix the trade compliance problems you can start addressing today? That’s the premise behind 90 Days Until 2027, a new 13-part Simply Trade [TIPS] series. Host Lalo Solorzano kicks things off with Miriam Name of Cacheaux, Cavazos & Newton (CCN), starting with a foundational question: the documentation behind your USMCA certifications of origin.

Signed Isn’t the Same as Supportable

As companies prepare supplier solicitations and next year’s blanket certificates, Miriam poses a sharper question than whether the paperwork is signed: can you back it up? Drawing on her experience with Mexico-side audits, she walks through what happens when invoices disappear, qualification calculations leave the company with a former employee, or the person signing a certification doesn’t actually understand its basis.

Collecting Isn’t the Same as Keeping

Lalo and Miriam dig into why gathering documents is only half the job. Those records also need to stay accessible, so someone can explain how a product’s origin was determined months or years later. The conversation covers the limits of scattered emails and manual tracking, and where software can genuinely help.

Start Now, Not in January

This opening episode sets the tone for the whole series: practical fixes now, instead of another compliance resolution once the new year hits. Miriam’s closing advice centers on self-audits, checking certification details against importer and shipment records, keeping methodology consistent across blanket certificates, and knowing when to decline a certification rather than guess at origin.

Ready to Go Deeper?

This is just the start of the 90 Days Until 2027 series, with a companion playbook currently in development. Explore GTC’s USMCA and Rules of Origin Training to get ahead of next year’s certification cycle, and follow Simply Trade for the rest of the series.