As Russia gets ready to join the World Trade Organization, opening up the country for foreign trade with American companies, there is concern amongst American businesses that they might see their goods and services subjected to higher tariffs than those supplied by other countries.
Border concerns in Russia mean that the Kremlin has been cracking down on dissidents; this has lead the American Congress to step back from requests that have been made by the current administration to remove the current restrictions there are on trade with Russia and help to establish more normalized relations.
Due to this inaction by Congress, major American brands such as Deere, General Electric and Caterpillar are concerned that this will have a negative impact on their business with the country.
The Republican Senator of Utah and member of the Senate Finance Committee, Orrin G Hatch, said: "The Obama administration has not articulated a clear and coherent strategy regarding Russia. Instead, they ask Congress to simply pass permanent normal trade relations and remove Russia from long-standing human rights law, while ignoring Russia's rampant corruption, theft of US intellectual property, poor human rights record and adversarial foreign policies."
Russia's membership of WTO has been 18 years in the making, from the time when the WTO was called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. This is longer than any other entrant, including China, has had to wait.
In order to establish normal trade relations, Congress will be required to repel a trade sanction that dates back to the cold war era, which was put in place to compel Russia, then the Soviet Union, to allow religious minorities to freely emigrate from the country.