Bush signs all-container scanning bill, but it does not bite until 2012

US President George Bush has signed a 9/11 provision into law that will require the compulsory scanning of all containers at foreign ports that are bound for the US, but its severe provisions do not kick in until July, 2012.

European nations oppose the bill because it will slow trade flows, resulting in higher shipping costs and longer waiting times to clear containers, without necessarily improving security.

Shippers in the US expect chaos ahead if the box scanning bill becomes law, reports The Journal of Commerce.

Erik Autor, vice-president of America's National Retail Federation, said in a report by the Financial Times of London that it would be hard to meet the bill's requirements, adding his doubts that the US Department of Homeland Security has the equipment or the personnel to do the checking needed at overseas ports.

James Carafano, a security expert at the Heritage Foundation, supported this view, saying the requirement was "political theatre" that would antagonize US allies.

"Experts on both sides of the Atlantic have already considered this measure to be of no real benefit when it comes to improving security while it would disrupt trade and cost legitimate EU and US businesses time and money," said EU Customs Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs.

"The United States now transfers unilaterally and without co-ordination with its trading partners the resource burden for protecting the United States onto them," he said in a statement published in Business Week.

The bill also calls for all airfreight to be examined within three years, although it allows for extensions to the deadlines for both air and sea cargo.