Washington-- U.S. Senator Evan Bayh today joined 19 other senators in a letter calling on President Bush to delay Russia's entrance into the World Trade Organization (WTO) until concerns regarding Russia's unfair trade practices against American workers can be resolved to both nations' satisfaction. In the letter, the senators outlined some of Russia's unfair trade practices, including the rampant theft of American intellectual property (IP) and unfair trade barriers.

"We have serious concerns that the United States may be poised to finalize the bilateral agreement with Russia while numerous issues critical to U.S. agriculture, manufacturing, high tech, intellectual property and services industries remain outstanding," the senators wrote in the letter. "Finalization of the U.S.-Russia bilateral WTO accession agreement must be based on commercially meaningful terms that will ensure benefits for U.S. workers, farmers and businesses."

The Russians maintain unfair trading barriers on many American goods, including newly-imposed tariffs on U.S. agricultural equipment exports and unduly complex import controls on high-tech goods from the United States. These barriers put the Russian market out of reach for nearly all of America's farmers and business leaders, forcing U.S. workers to compete in the international marketplace with one hand tied behind their backs.

Russia also undercuts the U.S. economy by failing to enact and enforce appropriate intellectual property protections. Not only do Russia's current IP laws not meet WTO standards, Russian officials are considering amendments to the Civil Code that would make the regulations even less effective. In November, Bayh introduced the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Act to protect American jobs and businesses by creating one organized force to combat IP theft and elevating the government's response to IP theft to the same level as money laundering and other black-market crimes.

"American farmers, manufacturers and businesspeople lose billions of dollars a year due to intellectual property theft," Bayh said. "The administration needs to take a stand against countries that turn a blind eye to cheating and piracy and insist that other countries play by the same rules if they want to benefit from membership in the WTO. By ignoring Russia's blatant trade violations, it will be that much harder to enforce fair trade laws around the world."

The senators noted that before the WTO Agreement would go into effect, Congress must grant Russia permanent normal trade relations and warned that until these important issues are adequately addressed, they would hesitate to support such legislation.

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