Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he will force a vote before Jan. 17 on a resolution that would stop the Treasury Department from lifting sanctions on Russian aluminum producer Rusal and related Russian companies. In order to stop the administration, both the House and Senate would have to vote for the joint resolution. In his press release announcing the intention, he said he "has concluded that the Treasury Department’s decision to lift sanctions on these three Russian companies was misguided and believes that the Senate must act to right the Trump Administration’s wrong, especially given the fact that the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation has not yet completed its work."
Russia export controls and sanctions
The use of export controls and sanctions on Russia has surged since the country's invasion of Crimea in 2014, and especially its invasion of Ukraine in in February 2022. Similar export controls and sanctions have been imposed by U.S. allies, including the EU, U.K. and Japan. The following is a listing of recent articles in Export Compliance Daily on export controls and sanctions imposed on Russia:
Rusal, which was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in April, will be delisted from sanctions Jan. 18, 2019, Treasury told Congress earlier this month. Although Rusal, a major aluminum producer based in Russia, was sanctioned in April, it received a series of stays of execution over the months as the government negotiated on how the company could avoid being put out of business as a result of the sanctions.
The World Trade Organization agreed to form a panel on whether Russian retaliation for U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs is illegal, at the Dec. 18 meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body. A Russian official said its delegation was bewildered to hear the U.S. say that Russia is undermining WTO rules "when it is the U.S. arbitrarily imposing additional duties on steel and aluminium and using them as a squeezer in order to allow the US, with different degrees of success, to get trade concessions from certain members," a summary of the meeting said. According to a Geneva trade official, there now have been five panels formed on retaliatory tariffs responding to the Section 232 tariffs. At the same meeting, the U.S. blocked a first request by China to form a panel to judge whether U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods under Section 301 are legal. Its delegation said that the two parties are in negotiations, and that's the right place to settle the conflict, not the WTO. The panel will automatically be authorized at next month's Dispute Settlement Body meeting. China said U.S. tariffs are damaging the global economy and damaging global industrial supply chains.
The World Trade Organization's dispute settlement body agreed to set up two more panels to judge whether the U.S. was justified in levying aluminum and steel tariffs on trading partners under a national security rationale. The decision, made Dec. 4, added Switzerland and India to the list of eight countries and the European Union that will have panels challenge the tariffs (see 1811210029).
In recent editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
The World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body is establishing panels to review seven countries' complaints about Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, as well as panels on Chinese, Canadian, Mexican and European retaliatory tariffs in response to those tariffs. The countries that requested a WTO verdict about the U.S. action include China, Canada, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Turkey and the European Union. All said that the tariffs, claimed as necessary to protect national security, are really safeguards, but the U.S. did not follow safeguard rules. The retaliatory tariffs, aimed to mirror the cost of the tariffs, are illegal, the U.S. argues. Countries hit by safeguard tariffs can raise tariffs in response, but only after a WTO panel says they can.
The Commerce Department looks set to leave in place an agreement suspending antidumping duties on uranium from Russia (A-821-802), it said in the preliminary results of an administrative review. Several exporters and resellers of Russian uranium appear to be in compliance with the suspension agreement, Commerce said, though the agency is waiting on more information before it makes its final decision. The final results of this review are due in May. A finding that Russian companies are not complying would result in Commerce terminating the suspension agreement, causing AD duties to take effect.
The U.S. blocked requests from China, Canada, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Turkey and the European Union to examine the legality of steel and aluminum tariffs at the World Trade Organization on Oct. 29. Panel requests can only be blocked one time, so at the next meeting, the panels will be formed. The U.S. was also seeking panels on retaliatory tariffs from China, Canada, Mexico and the EU, and those were blocked.
The World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body committee, which will meet Oct. 29, will consider multiple requests for panels on the legality of the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, and on the legality of the safeguard tariffs that others imposed in reaction to the Section 232 action. The U.S. notified the WTO that its consultations with the European Union, Mexico, China and Canada on their safeguards were unsuccessful, and it asks for a panel in each of those matters. Canada, Mexico, Norway, Russia, the EU and China all asked for a panel on the metals tariffs.
In recent editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted: