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fall. In the meantime, as restrictions ease, Russians that have been waiting to get married are tying the knot in record numbers. 40% more people got married in the first half of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020.
2.6 US threatens to revoke Russia’s “Market Economy” status
The Biden administration has put Russia’s “market economy” status under review in a move that revives a weapon not used since the 1990s to punish Russian trade.
The “market economy” designation is important as without it the US can impose special duties on exports from Russia to the rest of the world that could be more painful that the blunt weapon of sanction bans as they cost money and can make exports uncompetitive.
The in 1990s the US refused to grant Russia market economy status arguing that the state subsided energy and other inputs into the production of goods that ineffect were part of a pseudo-centrally planned economy that gave Russian goods an unfair advantage and so duties were levy to counteract the artificial prices of Russia’s goods.
By reviving the market economy status weapon Washington is partly admitting that the sanctions regime, imposed in 2014 following Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, has been largely ineffective and Washington has run out of things to sanction that won’t boomerang back and hurt US businesses as well. The Biden administrative is looking to expand its toolbox in dealing with the “Russia problem” and duties attached to the lack of market economy status looks like it could be an extensive and more effective tool.
Washington has treated Russia as a market economy since 2002, when it awarded the designation as a recognition of Russia’s economic and political transformation during the 1990s. Russia and the US enjoy convivial relations in the first few years of Russian President Vladimir Putin first term of office, but those soured rapidly after the US withdrew from the ABM treaty in 2002 and then Putin caused an international scandal by arresting oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003.
If the market economy status is revoked then the US can imposed anti-dumping import duties and penalties which the US can levy against Russian exporters. Russia said it unlocked an additional $1.5bn in trade after it
17 RUSSIA Country Report September 2021 www.intellinews.com