Moscow to Find Counter-Arguments against US Claim in WTO – Kremlin

MOSCOW – The Kremlin does not regard as normal that the US initiated a dispute in the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding extra duties imposed by Russia on certain US goods. At the same time this is “lawful right” of the US and Moscow will use counter-arguments in the dispute, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

“[The administration of the Russian President] does not regard [the situation with claim submission] as normal; on the other side, this is a lawful right [of the US],” Peskov told reporters.

“Russia will definitely use the broad range of counter-arguments in this regard,” he noted.

 The United States requested WTO dispute consultations with the Russian Federation concerning additional duties applied by Russia on certain imports of US goods; WTO said earlier on its website. The request for consultations is the first step in the claim procedure within WTO framework. If consultations fail to bear fruit, a conciliation panel will be formed.

The US wrongly interprets the nature of measures taken by the Russian side, the Ministry of Economic Development said. Russia acts within the framework of WTO agreement on special protection measures, which makes it possible to compensate damages from special protection measures taken by another country [the US in this case], the Ministry noted.

Russia introduced extra duties of 25-40% for US goods as a response measure to 25% steel import duty and 10% aluminum import duty imposed by the US earlier. Russian duties cover certain kinds of road construction machinery, oil and gas equipment and optic fiber.

TASS

R.S