Russia-Risk of US Sanctions.

UNITED STATES-SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA.

The National Pork Producers Council on Tuesday sent a letter to President Obama urging his administration to "slow the WTO accession process" for Russia until its government relists U.S. pork plants and signs an equivalence agreement with the United States.

Over the past year, Russia has banned or failed to relist 34 U.S. pork facilities, meaning almost half of all U.S. pork production cannot export to Russia.

However, Russia didn’t cite any health or sanitary reasons, violating a 2006 side agreement that is part of WTO bilateral negotiations between Russia and the United States. The pact established specific criteria and methods by which Russia would determine approval of U.S. pork plants, NPPC wrote.

Russia’s actions also don’t jibe with WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS), which requires WTO trading partners to recognize each other’s SPS measures as equivalent. Instead, NPPC contends, Moscow doesn’t adhere to the equivalence principle and approves U.S. meat facilities on a plant-by-plant basis.