LONDON   In the aftermath of the failed mail bomb plot there is a new debate about how much the US and other countries can and/or should be doing to keep their citizens safe from this new terror tactic.

What’s driving this is that the explosive devices from Yemen shipped via UPS and FedEx heading for the States were only snagged in airports in the UK and Dubai ONLY thanks to an intelligence tip.

The charge being made in reporting Tuesday is that Washington officials were aware of the terror risk of air cargo but were pressured by shipping companies and others to not act more thoroughly to avoid higher costs. 

The fact is there are some 26 million tons of cargo shipped worldwide every year.  And that checking every package could mean ruin not just for the cargo firms but also the global economy.

“This could, if taken to its ultimate conclusion,” UK-based aviation expert James Halstead told Fox News, “devastate an important industry at a time when it’s in the middle of economic recovery.”

Administration officials say they are responding.     Monday, the Department of Homeland Security extended a cargo ban to include both Yemen and Somalia, another terror hotbed. 

Additionally (and perhaps predictably) it also banned toner cartridges (the weapon of choice for the would-be bombers in the latest plot), as well as promising to focus more on what it calls “high risk” cargo.

The measures DO stop short of a call to search ALL items being shipped to US.

The hitch is, the US is at the mercy of the rest of the world.  It can only hope, and perhaps pressure, other countries to act.  With the assumption that they might, at the very least, do what’s in their own best security interests.

To that end, European Union security chiefs met Monday in Brussels.

The approaches discussed for possible consideration include, “blacklisting” airports seen as security risks, as well as taking a closer look at cargo lists in order to intercept dangerous parcels.

The economic impact of this is as real to European official as it is in the States but at least one official  dismisses that.    

According to German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, “If this is going to be more expensive, then it might be a little more expensive.  There is no security for free.”