Russia Raises WTO Meat Stakes

[CHIMO]

The Economic Development and Trade Ministry on Thursday threatened to scrap trade preferences for U.S. meat imports unless Washington agreed by the end of October to allow Russia into the World Trade Organization.

In a statement that was at times sarcastic, the ministry said Russia would cancel a June 2005 agreement that raised quotas for U.S. imports of poultry and beef through 2009 unless a bilateral deal on Russia's WTO bid were reached by October.

"Under the current circumstances, the government may not be able to continue ignoring Russian farmers who are urging us to revise meat quotas and drop all the concessions that Russia earlier granted to the Americans," said the statement, which was posted on the ministry's web site.

"We can say confidently that our poultry farmers are ready to deliver ever more products to the Russian market to phase out imports, particularly since our meat is of better quality and is sold frozen," he said, Interfax reported.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/08/18/040.html

Guess that the price for chicken wings will be coming down.

Seems really different in the announcements. There is no big declaration, just a slow grinding effect.

[Purveyor]

1. Steady as she goes, Moscow is more in the USA's face

by the day.

Indeed, even Russia realizes the USA and its two allies (UK & israel) cannot be trusted as the self-proclaimed leader of the 'free world'.

PNAC plans are quickly being subverted.

[HereSince1628]

2. Russians to no longer oogling Bush legs?

During my first trip to the Russian arctive back in 99 I was surprised to find in a freezer stocked with Tyson chicken legs in a tiny meat market in a rural village. Apparently it was a deal Poppy arranged with the Russians for that opened the market for Tyson. The Russians laughingly called them Bush legs.

[Tellurian]

3. Putin, the Russian John Wayne says: "Listen UP, PILGRIMS!"

"A senior U.S. trade representative said by telephone from Washington late Thursday that Russia canceling the 2005 agreement would be "very, very serious for the United States and for the WTO talks."

"We'll be very concerned if they are going to unilaterally abrogate the agreement," the representative said, on condition of anonymity. Last year's agreement was not a "unilateral preference or gift to the United States," the representative said, adding that it simply "rebalanced" earlier agreements. If Russia were to revoke that agreement now it would violate those previous agreements, the representative said.

Gref said last month that U.S. officials had offered to sign the bilateral WTO deal if Russia granted sanitary certificates to U.S. pork and beef producers. Gref said, however, that certificates would only be granted after Russia completed an audit of U.S. sanitary control facilities by the end of October.

In a scathing comment, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said the WTO was "in a deep systemic crisis resulting from the disruption of multilateral talks on agriculture. Most WTO members link that disruption to the rigid position of the United States and particularly to that of S. Schwab ... who so 'successfully' held talks with G. Gref in St. Petersburg."

Putin, swingin' a monkey by the tail.