USTR Announces 2021 Report on the Implementation and Enforcement of Russia’s WTO Commitments

On December 21, 2021, the Office of the United States Trade Representative released its “2021 Report on the Implementation and Enforcement of Russia’s World Trade Organization (WTO) Commitments.”

“This Report provides an overview of Russia’s continued departure from the guiding principles of the World Trade Organization, such as non-discriminatory practices, more open trade, predictability, transparency, and fair competition,” said Ambassador Katherine Tai. “Failure to follow WTO norms, rules, and commitments puts American workers and businesses at an economic disadvantage and prevents them from competing on a level playing field. USTR will continue to work with like-minded partners and use the tools of the WTO to hold Russia accountable for its behavior in the multilateral trading system.”   

The Report highlights areas in which USTR has raised concerns about Russia’s compliance with its WTO commitments, including:

• “Russia continues to adopt and implement localization measures to provide preferential treatment to both domestically produced goods and services.” 
   
• “In the agriculture sector, Russia maintains non-science-based import restrictions and refuses to recognize other countries’ guarantees on exporting facilities.”   
   
• “Russia’s import substitution strategies for the IT sector, such as the ‘Digital Economy of the Russian Federation,’ also raise additional national treatment and import substitution concerns.”  
   
• “As economies around the world were forced to retract and retrench in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government of Russia exacerbated those trends by extending its control over the Russian economy and tightening restrictions on trade.” 

Background 

This report was prepared pursuant to section 201 of the Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-208), which requires the U.S. Trade Representative to submit a report to the Committee on Finance of the U.S. Senate and the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives describing the commitments that Russia made upon entering the World Trade Organization on August 12, 2012, and assessing the extent to which Russia has implemented those commitments after 9 years of WTO membership.

The complete report on Russia’s WTO compliance can be found here.