US lawmakers in the House of Representatives voted
overwhelmingly in favour of lifting a decades-old
restriction on trade with Russia on Friday, bringing Washington one step closer
to normalising trade relations with Moscow.
The bill to lift the application of the Jackson-Vanik amendment on Russia - a Cold War-era piece of
legislation that denies most favoured nation status
to countries with limited freedom of emigration - passed by a large margin in
the House, with 365 lawmakers voting in favour and 43
against. The House bill also normalises trade
relations with Moldova, which - like Russia - is subject to the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
The House approval came just days after the chamber’s
Rules Committee voted to join the trade legislation with a provision that would
sanction alleged human rights violators in Russia, known as the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act after the
anti-corruption lawyer who died in a Moscow jail in 2009.
The Magnitsky bill would
require the public identification of those Russian officials implicated in
alleged human rights violations, including those said to be involved in the
lawyer’s death. It would also freeze the US financial assets of suspected human
rights violators, while denying them visas for US entry.
The inclusion of the human rights legislation - which has
drawn bipartisan support in Washington - in the House’s trade bill prompted a
strong response from Russian officials on Friday, with the country’s Foreign
Ministry calling the move an “aggressively unfriendly, provocative insult.”
Moscow has also pledged to take action in response, without specifying what
such measures might be.
Bill aims to address competitiveness fears
Russia formally joined the WTO in late August of this
year, following nearly two decades of negotiations with current members of the
Geneva-based trade body. With Russia now part of the 157-member WTO, US
lawmakers have been under mounting pressure to grant Moscow most favoured nation status, as required of all WTO members -
or, as it is known in Washington jargon, permanent normal trade relations
(PNTR) - out of concern that US producers would otherwise be put at a
disadvantage compared to their foreign competitors.
While many lawmakers and business groups had advocated
throughout the year for the passage of the trade legislation by the time
Russia’s membership became official in August - or at least by the US election
earlier this month - the repeal of Jackson-Vanik had
ultimately been put on hold until the current “lame duck” session of Congress,
due to the then-heated election climate.