The Jackson-Vanick amendment should be cancelled. I don't know why it is still there and nobody is concerned, Hyde said. He described the amendment as useless, outdated and voiced the hope that it would be revised.
In turn, head of the Duma International Committee Konstantin Kosachev said: "This make-up of the United States Congress has not brought up the question of a legislative initiative to cancel the Jackson-Vanick amendment." "We hope the initiative will be eventually introduced and considered," Kosachev said.
The Jackson-Vanick amendment stands in the way of Russian-American trade relations and is a major reason why the matter of Russia's membership in the World Trade Organization remains unsettled.
In view of the Jackson-Vanick amendment to the 1974 Trade Act, Russia enjoys the most-favored-nation state in trade on only the temporary basis (formally, it has to be prolonged every year). Although the grounds for its adoption by the Congress (freedom of emigration from the USSR) are no longer present and the Administration decided in 1994 that the Russian emigration policy is in full correspondence with the amendment's criteria, the Jackson-Vanick ruling remains.
