US President George Bush said on Friday that he was determined to get the US Congress to lift the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a Soviet-era piece of legislation withholding favourable trade tariffs from Russia.
“I am determined to work with Congress to remove Russia from the Jackson-Vanik amendment. It is time our Congress responded. My request and President Putin’s desire is that the Jackson-Vanik amendment be removed pertaining to Russia,” Bush told a joint press conference in the Kremlin.
Moves in the US Congress to “graduate” Russia from the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a 1974 law penalising Moscow for its restrictions on the movement of Soviet Jews, have stalled amid a bitter dispute over US poultry exports.
The US Senate, while supporting granting Russia permanent normal trade relations, said on Thursday it would only lift the amendment — widely recognised as an anachronism — “at the appropriate time.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin is also looking to Bush to help Russia gain the status of a free-market economy entitling it to US trade benefits a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Russia applied for market economy status in July 2001, but the process is a tortuous one and the US Department of Trade has still to conclude hearings on whether or not to accord Russia the designation.
On Jackson-Vanik, Bush supports lifting the ban, but the legislation has to be approved by Congress and has been held up in a committee of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where passions are running high over a dispute concerning Russian poultry imports from the United States.
Russian Economic Development Minister German Gref said after the Bush-Putin talks that a decision on granting Russia market economy status was to be taken by June 14, the Interfax news agency reported. – AFP