"the cost and bureaucracy of having to make payments up-front would now discourage us from taking CDs abroad"

Never, ever, have I, or any others that I know ever had to pay anything "up front" to take CDs abroad - Tours and festivals North America, Europe, Australia.

Never, ever had any problem with instruments either, in fact the only time I have ever seen a guitar case opened was once on our return to the UK from the USA where all the Customs Officer wanted to check on was that the instrument inside the case was not a brand new one being brought into the country. Once he saw the obvious signs of usage he simply closed the case and we carried on through.

CITES is a multi-national Treaty and neither the UK's Brexit or EU Regulation has, or will have any impact on it. Being the older international treaty it has precedence over anything the UK or Brussel's can introduce that could be seen as altering or amending CITES.

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