USTR Criticizes Russia's Failure to Comply with WTO Liberalization Rules
The Obama administration is increasingly concerned about Russian unwillingness to conform to wide-ranging trade liberalization principles and multilateral regimes, said the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in a review on Russian participation in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Russia is continuing to implement sanitary and phytosanitary measures that violate WTO rules, said the report. Russia has a virtual “zero tolerance” for residues of the antibiotic tetracycline but has not yet provided WTO members with related risk assessment. “Russia also has adopted a zero tolerance for ractopamine and certain hormones,” said USTR. “While Russia published a purported scientific justification for its measure on ractopamine, which we are reviewing in close consultation with U.S. industry and interested stakeholders, Russia has not provided any risk assessment with regard to hormones.”
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Among other concerns, the Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service also continues to face challenges with Russia's refusal to recognize FSIS authority to certify additional U.S. meat and poultry establishments that export products to Russia, in violation of a bilateral U.S.-Russia agreement, said the report. Russia is allowing the rules adopted through the Customs Union (CU) with Belarus and Kazakhstan to supersede the pertinent rules outlined in the U.S.-Russia pact, USTR added. “With the CU now having competence over approval of establishments and inspections, in some cases, Russia has insisted that FSIS provide guarantees that products for export to Russia meet Customs Union requirements, despite the continued validity of our bilateral U.S.-Russia export certificates,” said the report.