Russia Takes a Steely Stance, Bans Imports of U.S. Poultry

The U.S. ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Ministry here twice in the last few days. A delegation of experts has been dispatched from Washington to handle the crisis. Preparations for today’s start of tense negotiations in the latest U.S.-Russian flare-up dominated what should have been a festive holiday weekend.

It’s not tension in Central Asia that has ruffled Russian feathers, however, or a recent U.S. report slamming Moscow’s human rights record.

The angry standoff now commanding attention at the highest diplomatic levels is what Moscow calls “the chicken problem.”

Russia officially imposed a ban on U.S. poultry imports Sunday, ostensibly to pressure American producers to prove that the $630 million in poultry products sent here each year are free of antibiotics, undesirable additives and genetically modified feed.

But against a backdrop of steep tariffs imposed by the Bush administration on imported steel--a move that could cost Russia’s struggling industry upward of $1 billion--the sudden chop at U.S. chicken seemed more the answering volley in a tit-for-tat trade war than a genuine quest for quality assurance.

Russian officials offer contradictory assessments of how long it will take to resolve the impasse, which the U.S. poultry industry expects will cost it $50 million a month.

Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov shrugged off the dispute this weekend as a “technical” problem that could be resolved in a few hours of good-faith negotiating. However, Deputy Agriculture Minister Sergei Dankvert warned that it is “absolutely premature to say that this problem can be resolved in one or two days. The source of the problem is not here in Russia.”

President Bush announced last week that he was imposing tariffs of 8% to 30% on most imports of steel to the U.S. The move was seen abroad as an attempt to save jobs in key steel-producing states where Republican members of Congress face tough reelection battles this fall.

But the number of jobs that could be endangered in the poultry industry by Russia’s import ban is considerably higher. More than 300,000 people work in the U.S. poultry industry--about 50% more than in steel production--and sales to Russia account for half of all U.S. poultry exports and for at least 8% of total U.S. output.

U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow was called to the Foreign Ministry once last week to explain the steel tariffs and again on Saturday to talk turkey. While neither side has disclosed much detail of the talks aimed at getting the poultry blockade lifted, the seriousness with which the negotiations are being regarded was obvious in the frantic shuttle that took Russian officials to their offices throughout the long weekend, which began Friday with celebrations of International Women’s Day.

Russian media reports gave considerable attention Sunday to the arrival of officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and various food safety and animal husbandry services. But the reports emphasized the negative, noting a spate of discoveries of salmonella infection in U.S. poultry last week as well as the usual contention that U.S. producers ship to Russia mostly dark-meat hindquarters--parts left over because American consumers prefer white meat.

The chicken squabble currently riling Russia is actually an encore of one in 1996, when then-President Boris N. Yeltsin banned U.S. imports for about a week in an election-year bid to give Russian producers a better shot at their own market.

Russians were never big poultry eaters during the Communist era, when transportation and refrigeration problems led to widespread spoilage and discoloration. Most consumers disparaged the unappetizing “blue birds” in favor of red meat.

But the Russian appetite for chicken was whetted by President Bush’s father in 1991, when Washington sent tons of surplus chicken hindquarters here as food aid. To this day, they are known as “Bush legs.”

Russia’s domestic poultry industry was then on its knees, allowing U.S. producers to gain control of the market. Yeltsin’s bid to elbow out the “Bush legs” was short-lived, since local producers couldn’t provide the meaty products consumers had become used to.

Today, though, Russian poultry farmers argue that they are positioned to supply more of their own market and should soon be able to make up the 60% U.S. share.

“It will be enough to make a few small investments [in domestic poultry farms] to reanimate them for meat production. There is no catastrophe here,” Naum Bayev, head of the Mikhailovsky agriculture complex near Moscow, told RTR state television Sunday.

The Romir Research Agency here, however, estimates that more than 70% of poultry sales in Russia involve U.S. meat, which is 25% cheaper by weight than domestic poultry owing to technological advantages in the U.S. industry.

Russian officials have insisted that the poultry ban is unconnected to the steel tariffs, and those U.S. officials undertaking the chicken talks are unlikely to be empowered to discuss Russia’s concerns about steel losses.

With neither side willing to concede that its recent trade ventures might be counterproductive, the standoff threatens to shape up into a protracted game of, well, chicken.