DHL Expands Foreign Trade Zones with Three More Locations in U.S.

DHL is expanding its U.S. footprint of Foreign Trade Zones (FTZ) with a location at the El Paso, Texas airport, the logistics provider announced Thursday. DHL has seven other FTZs in major U.S. cities. "El Paso was chosen from a combination of factors; consideration of DHL’s existing FTZ footprint, customer demand and the location’s proximity to the Mexican State of Chihuahua and the factories located therein," David Goldberg, CEO of DHL Global Forwarding U.S., told Supply Chain Dive in an emailed statement. DHL has plans for three other FTZ locations in San Francisco; Laredo, Texas; and San Juan, Puerto Pico. An FTZ allows shippers to defer tariffs or other taxes on shipments as the locations are "generally considered outside of the United States for customs purposes," DHL explained in its release. DHL is not the only carrier expanding this offering, either. Last year, UPS announced it had converted four airport gateways to FTZs.