On the recordDecember 5, 2012
I rise to both support the bill we are considering today but also to discuss the implications of Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization, WTO. I was proud to be part of a unanimous vote for this measure coming out of the Finance Committee and I expect tomorrow we will see a similarly strong showing of support for this significant trade measure. It is not often these days that we see such bipartisan agreement and I welcome it and encourage its expansion into other key areas. Russia was formally invited to join the WTO on December 16, 2011, and its entry into the WTO became official and effective this past August. There are more than 150 countries in the WTO, and with Russia's entry, now each of those countries have gained an improvement in trade conditions with Russia in the form of lower tariff barriers, easier access to markets and credit, and a variety of less tangible but certainly meaningful benefits including greater transparency and more enforceable mechanisms for securing property and other rights. We are promised that all WTO member countries will enjoy these privileges in their trading with Russia, but so far we are not among them: if the Congress does not take the opportunity to enact the bill before us, then we are only harming ourselves, as American businesses will be at a serious disadvantage relative to other nations' enterprises in terms of their ability to access the Russian markets.…
