A White House official said a major part of the plan would entail stationing inspectors in foreign countries to examine drugs, food and other potentially dangerous products before they were shipped to American shores. The official said that with $2 trillion in imports annually, inspections at the ports had become ineffective.

The official said the plan would give the agencies the authority to certify the safety of products and to list certified products on a Web site that could be viewed by consumers.

By adopting a system of government-sponsored certifications and relying on various industries to police themselves, the official said, the plan would enable inspectors to focus on particular companies and industries with particularly dangerous products or checkered safety records.

The plan would give the drug and consumer protection agencies stronger authority to issue mandatory recalls and would propose steeper penalties on importers of goods that violated American safety laws.

Officials said that the plan would require significant budget increases for the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Food and Drug Administration. No new budget figures will be presented Tuesday, the officials said, but they are likely to be made later this year after the plan is refined. The officials refused to be identified because they did not want to upstage the formal announcement of the plan Tuesday by President Bush.