More Sanctions, U.S. Lawmakers End Normal Trade Status With Russia
On April 7, the U.S. Senate approved two bills that will limit trade with Russia. The first piece of legislation ends permanent normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus and amends Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act sanctions. This second provision would authorize the Biden administration to impose further sanctions on Russian officials for human rights violations.
Suspending normal relations with Russian will impact the industrial metals sector. According to S&P Global, for metals, duties on U.S. imports from Russia and Belarus could be raised up to 18.5 percent for most unwrought aluminum, 100 percent for magnesium, 45 percent for cobalt alloys, 25 percent for nickel sulfate, and 20 percent for finished steel.
The second bill piece of legislation codified the Biden administration’s ban on oil imports and other energy products from Russia. The House, which initially approved the trade measure in mid-March, backed the latest versions of both proposals with minimal opposition, sending them to President Joe Biden for his signature.
In related news: Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) have asked the Biden administration to lift Section 232 tariffs on steel imports from the Ukraine. In a letter sent April 5, the two said that while the war has severely disrupted Ukraine’s ability to export steel, “when the war ends and Ukraine’s economy reopens, Ukraine’s steel industry will be an integral part of its economic recovery.” They said that Ukraine is the 13th largest steel producer globally, and removing the tariffs on its steel would help Ukraine rebuild its economy.
U.S. policymakers took other actions against Russia last week as well. On April 6, the federal government increased sanctions on Russia’s largest private bank, state-owned enterprises, and Russian government officials and their family members. President Biden also announced a ban on all new investments in or exports to the Russian Federation by the U.S. government or by U.S. citizens. The Treasury Department also announced that Russia cannot use its dollar reserves, held in U.S. bank accounts, to make payments on its government bonds.
Read more about these sanctions here.
Those moves came as the European Union (EU) banned importing coal from Russia, put a full transaction ban on key Russian banks, banned Russian boats from accessing EU ports, and placed a targeted export ban on specific technologies that Russia lacks. The United Kingdom also banned all outward investment into Russia, froze assets on Russia’s largest bank, and committed to ending all imports of Russian coal and oil by the end of 2022.
The Canadian government, meanwhile, announced that it will impose new sanctions under the Special Economic Measures (Russia) Regulations and Special Economic Measure (Belarus) Regulations and imposed a host of other new sanctions.