Alaskan Lawmakers Urge US Ban on Russian Seafood Imports
The Alaskan congressional delegation pressed President Barack Obama on Aug. 26 to impose a ban on Russian seafood products, if diplomatic efforts fail to immediately stop the Russian agricultural ban on U.S. products. Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and House member Don Young, R-Alaska, said in a letter to Obama the Russian ban will damage the Alaskan seafood industry, including salmon, pollock and crab fisheries.
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The administration should coordinate with the European Union, Norway and Canada, others included in the Russian ban, in its response, said the letter. “We do not make this request lightly as there is significant seafood trade between the two countries, but in light of the direct impact on our constituent’s interests we believe it is necessary for the U.S. to respond quickly and emphatically,” said the delegation. “It was the Russian government that decided to use food, in addition to energy resources, as economic weapons, and inaction should not be an option.” The lawmakers also urged the administration to ensure re-processed products and transshipments are included in a potential ban.
U.S. seafood makes up 3 percent of Russian seafood imports, and U.S. frozen salmon roe will be particularly impacted by the ban, said the Department of Agriculture in a recent Global Agricultural Information Network. Many U.S. industry officials question whether the U.S. would want to use the World Trade Organization as a forum to pressure a removal of the ban (see 14081417).
A U.S. ban in response to the Russian measure likely would violate global trade rules, but the Obama administration could justify such a decision through Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which provides national security exceptions, said Scott Miller, Scholl chair in international business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a brief interview. "There’s so much back and forth between the two parties in terms of sanctions,” Miller said. “It’s hard to tell what the U.S. response might be.” The Russian ban came in the wake of a series of U.S. sanctions throughout 2014 (see 14073013).
The national security exception, however, has not been used in decades, and both the U.S. and Russia may hesitate to invoke Article XXI, said National Foreign Trade Council President Bill Reinsch. "Through the dispute process, the WTO might come up with a national security definition which is very far reaching, which would justify a lot of trade-related actions. But it could also come up with a very narrow definition," said Reinsch, noting WTO national security definition might make U.S. embargoes globally subject to scrutiny. "People are very nervous about invoking the exception because they're worried about consequences down the line. If you start down that road, you open the floodgates." -- Brian Dabbs