Although the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Russian imports to put pressure on the country to stop its invasion of neighboring Ukraine, an Associated Press report today said thousands of shipments of Russian goods have entered the U.S. in the past six months.
Russia began attacking Ukraine in late February. Previously, the U.S. levied sanctions against the Russian Federation after it illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.
However, by 2019 Russia was the 20th largest supplier of goods to the U.S., with imports from the country totaling $22.3 billion, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. That figure was up 6.8% compared to 2018 and 22.3% compared to 2009.
At that time, before the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the global economy, the top import categories from Russia to the U.S. were mineral fuels ($13 billion), precious metal and stone ($2.2 billion), iron and steel ($1.4 billion), fertilizers ($963 million), and inorganic chemicals ($763 million).
From roughly late February to late August of last year, around 6,000 shipments of goods from Russia arrived in the U.S., according to the AP. During the same period this year, 3,600 shipments of metals, rubber, wood and other goods from Russia have made it into the country.
“In reality, no one involved actually expected trade to drag to a halt after the invasion,” said the AP report. “Banning imports of certain items would likely do more harm to those sectors in the U.S. than in Russia.”
According to the AP, metal, wood, and fuel have been some of the most popular Russian imports this year. Other imports include bullets and radioactive material such as uranium hexafluoride.
Russian state-owned Tenex JSC – the world’s largest exporter of initial nuclear fuel cycle products – imported uranium hexafluoride to Westinghouse Electric Co. in South Carolina. Radioactive material from Russia has also been used in the U.S. to sterilize packaged medical supplies used throughout North America.
In 2019, snack food imports from Russia to the U.S. totaled $8 million. Shipments of buckwheat, dried fruit and chocolate have also also arrived in this year in U.S., where Russian immigrants search for a taste of home. Some of these goods are shipped to from Krasnyi Oktyabr company in Russia, said Grigoriy Katsura from its U.S. offices in Brooklyn, New York.
“Although imports of some food items, such as seafood and vodka, have been restricted, the Treasury Department last month published a fact sheet reiterating that agricultural trade between the U.S. and Russia is still very much allowed,” said the AP.
Indeed, while banned items such as oil and gas are still arriving in the U.S. from Russia – some arriving from completion of existing contracts – the outlet said other recent imports “are clearly legal and even encouraged by the Biden administration,” including more than 100 shipments of fertilizer.
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