ABSTRACT
The low politics of trade between Russia and the United States are subordinated to the high politics of war and peace, and both of these countries use trade as leverage in dealing with one another and with third countries. There is nothing new about this. The episodes discussed in this chapter show a consistent pattern in the conduct of trade relations between these two countries, and more precisely in the readiness with which the US Congress has historically responded to political demands for sanctions that are not counterbalanced by pro-trade economic interests. Congress has most often done so by exercising its constitutional monopoly over trade policy, either threatening to act unilaterally or (more often) by linking its approval for presidential initiatives to shifts in US policy towards Russia. This general pattern has remained true across three centuries, and has survived major shifts in Russia’s political system and its place in the world. For all else on which they might disagree, Russian policy-makers in the czarist, communist, and postCold War eras would each see great continuity in the way that Washington links trade to politics. Russia received unconditional most favoured nation (MFN) treatment from the United States for just 36 years in the 20th century, having first lost that MFN status for reasons unrelated to communism, and these sanctions did not end with the Cold War.
