March 24, 2022

On The Senate Floor, Brown Urges Colleagues to Revoke Permanent Normal Trade Relations With Russia

Brown Led Introduction of Bipartisan and Bicameral Bill to End Permanent Normal Trade Relations With Russia

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today on the Senate Floor, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) called for the U.S. Senate to act and vote to revoke Permanent Normal Trade Relations with Russia. A bill passed the House by a near unanimous and bipartisan vote and Brown is calling on his colleagues to pass this legislation in the Senate.

“Russia should not have free and unlimited access to America’s economy. Even before this war, we knew that Russia cheats the rules on trade,” said Brown. “We need to do our part to give the President the immediate legal authority he needs to work with our allies on this – to shut off access to favorable tariff treatment for Russia’s goods here and around the world.”

Brown has been advocating for legislation to end Permanent Normal Trade Relations with Russia.

Earlier this month, Brown and Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) released a statement following the news that President Biden has announced support for removal of Permanent Normal Trade Relations with Russia. Brown and Cassidy introduced the bipartisan and bicameral No Most Favored Nation Trading with Russia Act to revoke Russia’s most-favored-nation status, which currently shields Russia from being subject to higher U.S. tariffs.

Brown and Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) also sent a letter to the International Trade Commission urging them to assertively enforce U.S. trade remedy law as it relates to Russia. Given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the senators want to ensure that the United States is fully enforcing U.S. law against Russia.

Brown’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:

Mr./Madame President,

Since Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, Putin has been shocked by two things:

He’s been shocked by the courage and the resilience and the skill of the Ukrainian Army and the Ukrainian people.

And he’s been shocked by the way President Biden has unified the free world, and put together this broad, effective coalition.

The President and his team have done an extraordinary job at mustering the strength of an allied coalition to imposing a broad range of powerful, punishing sanctions.

We have cut off huge portions of their banking, finance and business sector from the western financial world.

We’ve shut down access to their monetary reserves – what Putin considered his “war chest.”

We’ve sanctioned their central bank, their large commercial banks, and their sovereign wealth funds.

We’ve cut off their ability to finance their debt.

We’ve blocked key sanctioned banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system.

We are shutting down their borrowing privileges at international institutions like the World Bank and IMF.

We have gone after Putin personally and the oligarchs who prop up his regime.

We’ve gone after their intelligence entities and defense firms and others supporting them and supporting the war effort.

We have sanctioned disinformation agents, freezing their assets and cutting off their ability to propagandize Putin’s lies.

Together with our allies, we have begun to go after their lucrative energy sector.

We shut down the Nordstream II gas pipeline, and imposed a broad ban on Russian oil, gas and coal coming into the United States.

We have cut off all new American investment into their oil and gas sector, and our big oil and gas firms have withdrawn in droves.

We have cut off the sophisticated technology Russia’s refining industry needs, and other technologies that power their industrial efforts.

In all this, we are making clear: Russia cannot invade its neighbor, kill civilians, and expect to benefit from being part of the international economic order.

Putin’s mistake will set Russia back a generation or more.

It will sever its main economic, political and diplomatic ties with the West and with countries around the world who want to have nothing to do with Putin and his regime.

In Brussels tomorrow, the President is set to announce a major new wave of powerful sanctions, including against hundreds of Duma members and other elites who have enthusiastically supported this brutal war.

I hope he will also intensify American efforts, along with our allies, to impose further sanctions on any defense, intelligence or other Russian firms who have in any way supported this invasion – directly or indirectly.

And every day large teams at Treasury and the Department of Justice are working with our allies to find, freeze and seize the assets of the oligarchs and other Russians who have supported Putin’s war machine – the yachts, the mansions, the overseas bank accounts.

There will be no place to hide.

All of that is vital – but we can do more.

Russia should not have free and unlimited access to America’s economy – or to the global economy.

The president has already committed to ending Permanent Normal Trade Relations with Russia.

We need to do our part to give the President the immediate legal authority he needs to work with our allies on this – to shut off access to favorable tariff treatment for Russia’s goods here and around the world.

We cannot delay this another day.

This bill already passed the House with a nearly unanimous bipartisan vote.

We need to finalize this now in the Senate, so we can ratchet up the pressure even further, and cut off Russia’s ability to finance its unprovoked invasion of another member country of the World Trade Organization.

Even before this war, we knew that Russia cheats the rules on trade.

They subsidize their industries and pollute the environment to gain an unfair advantage in the global market – and Ohioans know all too well about being forced to compete with countries that cheat.

If we do not remove this now, Russia will continue to use this status to position their industries in the global market, hurting American companies in the process.  

This is not a partisan issue. I introduced a bicameral and bipartisan bill with Senator Cassidy to remove Russia’s permanent normal trade relations status almost a month ago. There is bipartisan support to do this as quickly as possible.

I have worked with my colleague Senator Crapo on many Russia sanctions efforts over the years, and I know we share the same goals.

I’m hopeful there is a path forward to getting this done today. He’s arguing that an oil ban should be included in this, even though the President already issued an executive order on this that is already in effect.

I hope we can work out our differences, quickly, so that we can send a clear, unified message to Russia and the world:

Countries that invade another sovereign nation will not have free and unrestricted access to our economy.

And they will not be able to finance that invasion by continuing to cheat the rules on trade. It’s time to come together to end Permanent Normal Trade Relations with Russia.

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