Posts Tagged ‘obama’
US trade upgrade may worsen relations with Russia
The Obama administration wants Congress to remove Soviet-era trade restrictions that have been a sore point in U.S.-Russia relations for decades. But the conditions lawmakers are demanding to make the change may only worsen America’s increasingly shaky relations with Moscow.
Republicans and Democrats are trying to tie the easing of the so-called Jackson-Vanik restrictions to a measure imposing sanctions against Russian officials linked to human rights abuses. That would infuriate Russia and would be the latest hitch in what administration officials consider a major foreign policy success: improved relations with Russia after a sharp downturn during the Bush administration. They call it the “reset.”
Obama administration officials are trying to keep the rights and trade measures apart. They are concerned about retaliation and do not want to aggravate relations further. Tensions have been growing over issues like missile defense and the international response to uprisings in Libya and Syria. But the U.S. still hopes for a degree of cooperation with Russia on other matters, such as stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
“We want to deal with trade issues in one sphere and democracy issues and human rights in another sphere,” said Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Russia.
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After Jackson-Vanik
The Obama Administration’s “reset” with Russia has muffled concerns over human rights and democracy and dwelled on business palatable to the Kremlin like nuclear proliferation and trade. The Senate now has an opportunity to restore balance to this relationship.
Days after Vladimir Putin won another manipulated election, President Obama responded by calling for the Senate to repeal the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, which links trade access to Moscow’s treatment of its citizens. The dispute in Washington isn’t whether Jackson-Vanik should stay in place, but what should follow.
With Russia set to join the World Trade Organization this summer, American companies would be hurt by Jackson-Vanik, which blocks the U.S. from granting normal trading status. Under WTO rules, Russia could adopt retaliatory tariffs. Even Russian opposition leaders consider Jackson-Vanik a “relic,” as Garry Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov wrote in these pages Thursday. They support its repeal. As do we.
The problem is that the White House doesn’t want anything else put in its place to hold the Kremlin to account for human-rights abuses. Some senior Senators disagree, and they support a worthy successor to Jackson-Vanik.
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Stealing the Future in Russia
The Other Russia
The adjective “Orwellian” has become cheap currency in modern political discourse. Liberals and conservatives alike in open democracies like the United Kingdom and the United States enjoy using the term to describe nearly any infringement on civil liberties by the state. Video cameras to deter crime, wiretaps of suspected terrorists, security checks at airports – all have been deemed worthy reference to George Orwell’s masterpiece 1984. As much as I share these concerns, those of us who live in actual police states would prefer to preserve the power of the vocabulary required to describe our circumstances.
The most powerful theme in Orwell’s book is not that of the all-seeing Big Brother, but that of the control and distortion of language, especially in the form of newspeak. Words take on inverted meanings, terms expressing unapproved ideas are eliminated, and human thought itself is curtailed through the reduction and simplification of vocabulary. This attempt to warp reality via information control is not science fiction to anyone brought up on Pravda in the Soviet Union – or anyone living in Putin’s Russia today.
And so, the presidential election of March 4 — the most fraudulent in Russian history — is proclaimed “fair and clean” by the state-controlled media. Peaceful civilian protests are dubbed “extremist provocations” and the riot police who brutally suppress the protestors are “maintaining order.” The public outcry over fraud in the December 4 parliamentary elections was followed by even greater corruption and the preordained reinstallation of a KGB lieutenant colonel who clearly aims to install himself as dictator-for-life.
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Kasparov, Nemtsov call McFaul’s Bluff
On Tuesday, I wrote about U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul’s objection to tying America’s economic interaction with Russia to the promotion of human rights. McFaul was in Washington for a conference and also to push for repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a piece of Cold War-era legislation that sanctioned Moscow’s trade status for restricting Jewish emigration. Now that Russia is joining the World Trade Organization, Jackson-Vanik disadvantages American businesses, and so it’s time to repeal it.
But I argued that McFaul’s emphasis on repealing Jackson-Vanik was a dodge, since its repeal is uncontroversial. The real issue is whether it should be replaced by legislation that would hold Vladimir Putin’s administration accountable for its atrocious human rights record. Were McFaul not representing the Obama administration, I added, he might very well support such action–McFaul is the author of several books on promoting democracy in the post-Soviet space. Today, Garry Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov, two outspoken Russian opposition figures, take to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to make those points, and a few others.
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U.S. must maintain way to press Putin regime on human rights
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Washington Post
Having Campaigned on a platform of anti-Americanism, Vladimir Putin likely will be proclaimed the winner of Sunday’s presidential election in Russia, giving him a new six-year mandate — and likely inaugurating an era of unrest in a nation whose rising middle class rejects him. The United States, which has focused on cutting deals with Mr. Putin while largely ignoring his autocratic domestic policies, now has a clear interest in encouraging the emerging mass movement demanding democratic reform.
It’s therefore unfortunate that the Obama administration’s first initiative after Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency will be to lobby Congress to grant Russia permanent trade privileges. The problem is not the preferences, per se; it is the administration’s resistance to replacing an outdated protocol for pressing Moscow on human rights with one suited to this moment.
The White House is seeking the repeal of a 1974 law known as Jackson-Vanik, which links the trade preferences for Russia to free emigration. Repeal is logical for a couple of reasons: Russia, unlike the former Soviet Union, does not restrict the exit of Jews and others; and if the law is not removed, U.S. companies will be penalized after Russia enters the World Trade Organization later this year.
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U.S.-Russian Trade Ties Face Some Political Snags
With relations between Russia and the United States on edge over Syrian policy and strident anti-American statements by the Russian government in response to political protests here, the Obama administration and its Democratic allies in Congress have begun an aggressive push to end cold-war-era trade restrictions and make Russia a full trade partner.
The seemingly incongruous and politically fraught campaign to persuade Congress to grant permanent, normal trade status reflects a stark flip in circumstances: suddenly, after more than 35 years of tussling over trade, Russia has the upper hand.
In December, Russia became the last major economy to win admission to the World Trade Organization — a bid that was supported by the Obama administration because it required Russia to bring numerous laws into conformity with international standards, including tighter safeguards for intellectual property. It was also part of the so-called reset in relations with the Kremlin.
But if Congress does not repeal the restrictions, adopted in 1974 to pressure the Soviet Union to allow Jewish emigration and now largely irrelevant, the United States will soon be in violation of W.T.O. rules. American corporations could be put at a serious disadvantage — paying higher tariffs, for instance, than European and Asian competitors, which would immediately enjoy the benefits of Russia’s new status.
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The Failure of the “Russia Reset”: Next Steps for the United States and Europe
Abstract: The policies of the United States and the European Union should encourage and support Russian civil society and Russia’s democratic modernizers. And, if Russia continues to abrogate its international commitments to basic freedoms and human rights, the U.S. and the EU must stand up for democratic values and make it clear that Russian aggression will not be tolerated. President Obama’s Russia “reset” policy achieves the opposite. Just as the U.S. reset has shaped European thinking, overly lenient signals from the EU to Russia will have a negative effect on U.S. interests, including support of democracy and promotion of economic freedom. The U.S. should collaborate with individual European allies as well as the European Union to set an agenda that better defends transatlantic interests from Russian aggression.
President Barack Obama’s Russia “reset” policy has encouraged European Union politicians who have long advocated a “softly, softly” approach toward Russia to push for a “fast-forward” in Brussels’ relationship with Moscow. Clearly alluding to President Obama’s Russia-policy pronouncement at the EU–Russia summit in June 2010, President of the European Council Herman van Rompuy stated: “With Russia we do not need a ‘reset.’ We want a ‘fast forward.’”[1]
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FPI Analysis: Moving Beyond the U.S.-Russian “Reset”
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Sanctions urged on Russian officials over abuses
The Obama administration is coming under pressure from Congress to support sanctions on Russian officials who are known human rights violators in return for repealing a cold war-era law that could limit bilateral trade after Russia joins the World Trade Organisation.
The White House is concerned that sanctions would harm a tentative thaw in relations with the Kremlin and is instead proposing the establishment of a foundation to promote democracy in Russia, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.
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