​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
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​This comes on top of daily news coverage of each and every candidate’s activities in the field and invitations to appear on leading television talk shows and interviews which are dispensed by media producers at their option. And it is rounded out by advertising paid for by the electoral headquarters of the 8 candidates. The net result is that domestic politics are jostling with Olympics coverage and international news for the attention of the broad Russian public, and will continue to do so until the Day of Silence, 17 March, when the campaigns shut down in anticipation of the balloting the next day.

In the West, during the run-up to his disqualification as a candidate by the Central Election Commission in December, election news from Russia carried by mainstream media centered on Alexei Navalny. He was characterized as posing the only real threat to Vladimir Putin’s hold on power through his popular exposes of official and corporate corruption disseminated virally on social media and youtube. All others in the race were put down as Kremlin controlled and tolerated only to give sham elections an appearance of authenticity.

​When his candidacy was rejected due to a criminal conviction, Navalny issued a call to boycott the election. He launched unsanctioned street demonstrations in Moscow and elsewhere, leading to scuffles with the police. Some of his supporters and Navalny himself were arrested and later released.  But the protests were all on a small scale and Western media quickly lost interest.

Now attention was refocused on the 36 year old celebrity candidate Ksenia Sobchak, Russia’s own Paris Hilton, a television personality who brought glamor, youth and a novel “vote against all” or “none of the above” slogan in support of her candidacy. It bears mention that Sobchak would be the first female candidate for the Russian presidency since 2004,  In December 2017, she was quickly slotted into the race by winning support from the pro-Liberal “Civic Initiative” party, giving her a nation-wide organizational presence and reduced requirements for gathering signatures of supporters to be registered.

In her first speeches on the campaign trail, Sobchak called out the abuses and inefficiency of the Russian bureaucracy. But her main fire was directed against the very stability of the Putin regime with its immutable elite and opposition leaders who have moved from middle age to pension age before her eyes and seem intent on remaining in office to the very end.  To this she added a number of foreign policy positions drawn from the Liberal opposition that were sure to win her the attention and support of the West even if they ran against the clear preferences of the vast majority of the population as spelled out in the polls: namely her condemnation of the reunification with Crimea as a violation of international law and her insistence that there was no threat to Russia from NATO expansion.

Indeed, while her fellow candidates were traveling around their vast country to meet with voters, earlier this month Ksenia Sobchak made a trip to the United States, where among other activities, she was feted at the Center for International Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C. Her talk was piquantly entitled “Russia’s Post-Authoritarian Future.”

In the big order of things, Sobchak’s foreign policy positions and her cultivation of political support in the U.S. is border-line treasonous behavior that falls into the tradition of the Liberal Opposition leaders in the Parnas political movement, Boris Nemtsov and Mikhail Kasyanov.  In 2011, Nemtsov famously traveled to Arizona to see U.S. Senator John McCain and lend his support to American sanctions against Russia over alleged human rights abuses. Put inversely, Sobchak’s American hosts receiving her in the midst of the presidential elections were necessarily guilty of egregious meddling in Russian domestic affairs.

​The first poll results in January gave Ksenia Sobchak about 1% of the electorate and little has changed since. However, in the same time frame there was great dynamism in the popular support for the candidate of the Communist Party, Pavel Grudinin, trending well over 10% and putting him in second place after Vladimir Putin (70%). Despite their habitual disregard of the Communists, Western journalists took an interest. The fact that Grudinin was not a Communist Party member made his personality all the more intriguing.

Surprisingly friendly articles about Grudinin began appearing in The Financial Times among other mainstream outlets.  They highlighted the fact that he had made his mark as director of a prosperous farm complex in the Moscow region where he paid his workers more than double the national average salary and offered pre-school care, subsidized housing, free medical care and other social benefits from the Soviet era which he pledged to generalize across the country if elected. Grudinin was speaking the language of European Social Democracy or Scandinavian welfare state, if you will, making a very agreeable contrast with the orthodox Communist ideology of the Party standard bearer in the previous four presidential elections going back to 1996, Gennadi Zyuganov.

With a likable demeanor, quiet self-confidence and enjoying the support of the country’s largest full-scale national political machine after the United Russia ruling party backing Putin, Grudinin very quickly found himself in the crosshairs of the Kremlin elites.  The main news broadcasters Pervy Kanal and Rossiya-1 initiated regular coverage of a protest movement against Grudinin over allegations impugning his management of the Lenin State Farm that is his model for the future development of Russia:  it was said that he had wrongfully cheated more than half of the farm’s cooperative members-employees out of their shares during the 1990s and that the wealth of the farm came not from selling strawberries and other produce but from windfall profits in the disposal of some of its land holdings to developers. A second line of attack is that Grudinin had not declared a couple of bank accounts he held abroad.

From polls taken in mid-February, it would appear that this constant barrage of negative news halted the trending in Grudinin’s favor and possibly dented his numbers. Nonetheless, with 7% of voters polled declaring their intention to vote for the Communist Party candidate, he remains second to Putin and just ahead of the anti-Communist, nationalist party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky (LDPR).

Nonetheless, the ruling party is clearly not taking any chances and will be unrelenting in its attacks. The Sunday, 18 February edition of the widely viewed News of the Week program on Rossiya-1 dwelled for about 10 minutes on the Communists.  Presenter Dmitry Kiselyov used questionable poll figures on voting intentions of Party members to argue that the decision to back the non-Party Grudinin opened the Communists to an internal division, with less than half its members prepared to vote for him.  Kiselyov predicted the party’s demise and called upon its leader Gennady Zyuganov to reverse his decision and withdraw his support, this is the name of solicitude for Russia’s still new and fragile democracy.

​This particular report by Kiselyov seems to have little if any factual basis.  The notion that Grudinin’s candidacy splits the Left runs counter to the process that led to his selection in the first place. That process bears mention here since it seems not to have been picked up by Western media.  

In fact, many of the Left political movements, entailing more than a hundred organizations led by the Left Front and the Communist Party, collectively held primaries in which Grudinin won in a second-stage run-off.  It was on this basis of his being a unity candidate of the Left that Gennady Zyuganov put Grudinin’s name forward within his own party and then assumed the position of his campaign manager.

In the face of the various attacks from the Russian state news programs and in personal interviews on air from ill-disposed hosts, Grudinin has shown himself to be cool-headed and genial.  In his 37-minute long January interview with Vladimir Solovyov on Rossiya-1, Grudinin managed to withstand harsh questioning and to get out his political program and beliefs, even forcing the presenter to acknowledge some common perspectives on the country’s ills and to smile at some of his repartee.

Grudinin calls for continuity in the country’s foreign policy, to the point where he says he would keep in office Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Instead, the changes he seeks are in domestic policy. To ensure the social benefits mentioned above, he would introduce a progressive income tax, freeing the poor from tax but imposing a substantial levy on the wealthy. Moreover, he would require repatriation of oligarchs’ wealth from abroad and ensure there would be no further private export of capital offshore. Finally, he would channel all profits from the country’s oil and gas industry into the state coffers, while acting strictly through the law and independent courts. Heady stuff!

Coming in third in the mid-February polls with 5% electoral support, Vladimir Zhirinovsky is the candidate who has been receiving the most television air time now for months as a nearly daily guest on both principal talk shows produced by Rossiya-1, Sixty Minutes and Evening with Vladimir Soloviev. On these shows he is allowed by the indulgent presenters to dominate discussion, delivering a stream of outrageous comments on Russia’s past, on relations with the United States and more that have great entertainment value even if they are far removed from day to day politics. Thus, even in the “debate” between Zhirinovsky and Grudinin which the popular talk show Sixty Minutes hosted a couple of weeks ago, and which has gathered more than 4 million “hits” on youtube, the LDPR leader was allowed to hog the microphone and Grudinin was doubly under pressure from the few questions pitched to him by the moderator.

​Apart from his insistence on taking a strong stand against American provocations in Syria, in the Ukraine, in its sanctions list, Zhirinovsky’s platform focuses on domestic concerns like all other candidates. He decries unemployment levels, low living standards, unaffordable housing, for-pay medical care and education. However, while calling for social welfare that is not dissimilar to the Communist Party’s program, Zhirinovsky denounces the Soviet past for running a dysfunctional economy and for misguided internationalism at the expense of the welfare of the Russian people. Says Zhirinovsky, the United States uses its foreign policy to bring in wealth, while the Soviet Union, and to a lesser degree Russia today only loses wealth on foreign adventures.

Zhirinovsky’s main target in his campaign is not the ruling United Russia party but the Communists. In his television appearances he is a pit bull against Grudinin.  For his support to Putin in the last Duma elections, Zhirinovsky’s party was rewarded with the chairmanship of the Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee.  One may assume that if his run against Grudinin works, Zhirinovsky and/or his party will get additional political spoils, perhaps at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself.

* * * *
The opening on 18 March of the Russian airwaves to promotional video clips, both free and paid for by the candidates, added an important new dimension by which their objectives and electoral prospects can be measured.  Since no one in Russia or in the West seems to have made use of these new metrics, I will take the plunge in what follows.

First, the latest television spots for Ksenia Sobchak are head and shoulders above all other Russian electoral advertising. Both in terms of concept and in terms of execution, they bear the fingerprints of top international corporate public relations talent. Sobchak has been re-packaged and her entire message is concentrated in two words that are positive, attractive and impactful:  “за молодость и смелость” – “for youth and daring.”  This contrasts with her previously negative appeal of “none of the above” and matches the flair of Vladimir Putin’s own campaign slogan “a strong President for a strong country.”

​Sobchak’s coiffure, her dress, her entire image has been reconfigured to combine seriousness of purpose with womanly as opposed to girlish appeal.  If she can stay to script on the campaign trail, the new Sobchak may be expected to multiply several fold the votes she draws on election day. This assumes she is not undone by alternative videos posted on youtube by her enemies, contrasting the new idol of the creative classes in Moscow with her recent past as a narcissistic Reality Show star. In any case, Sobchak’s results will not threaten Vladimir Putin, but may set in place a credible foundation for further development of her political year in coming years.

Second in sophistication to Sobchak are the latest videos posted by the Yabloko candidate Grigory Yavlinsky. The perpetual candidate of this Liberal party born in the 1990s that has enjoyed support among urban intellectuals in the two capitals, Moscow and St Petersburg, Yavlinsky has waged a low-key campaign and raised assorted issues like animal welfare in his talks on the campaign trail. One new video clip repeats insistently the theme that Russians as a people have been inventive and at the cutting edge of technology for at least a couple of centuries but have been let down by their state and political culture. Meanwhile his latest video can easily be confused for a message from the Central Election Commission urging the population not to stay at home, not to watch the political process with folded arms but to go and vote on election day. Only in the last couple of seconds is the candidate himself identified.  The clear purpose of this advert is to discredit Alexei Navalny and his call for a boycott.

Yavlinsky knows his chances of succeeding to the presidency based on his fraction of a percent of popular support are nil, and this video suggests he has decided to use his opportunity as a candidate with air time to discredit the non-systemic and authoritarian Navalny. This is a variant of Zhirinovsky’s attacks on Grudinin: candidates devouring one another while leaving the enormously popular Putin untouched.

Apart from Sobchak and Yavlinsky, the remaining challengers to Putin and United Russia have posted promotional videos which are primitive in both concept and execution, none more so that the videos of LDPR candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In contrast to the relaxed and confidential tone of Sobchak and Yavlinsky, Zhirinovsky is intense and aggressive. He denounces poverty, unemployment and social injustice while making empty, unsupported promises of a bright future if he is elected. It is a safe bet that Zhirinovsky took no counsel from PR professionals and relied solely on his own instincts.

The Communist Party videos on behalf of Pavel Grudinin are also lacking in sophistication and emotional appeal. They do the candidate no favors.  It is hard to say whether Grudinin’s greater air time on talk shows and the like due to his leads in polls against the rest of the non-Putin field and his own relaxed and attractive personality can compensate for the official media attacks and the disservice of mediocre advertising support from the Communist Party. Notwithstanding these deficiencies, it is entirely possible that Grudinin’s ballot count on 18 March will be substantially higher than the polls now suggest. Not enough to force a run-off against Putin, but sufficient to revise expectations in the Party’s favor during the next Duma elections.

​Those in the West who have viewed the Russian presidential election of 2018 with disdain because of the near certainty that Vladimir Putin will win are missing the point.  In the candidacies of Sobchak and Grudinin, in particular, we see the jostling for power in the next legislative elections of 2021 between what are new generation Right and Left forces directed against the centrist ruling United Russia party. All of this will greatly affect the post-Putin succession process which will set in by 2022 given the “lame duck” phenomenon as the President’s men make their own moves to secure their future without him.

© Gilbert Doctorow, 2018

G. Doctorow is an occasional guest lecturer at St. Petersburg State University and Research Fellow of the American University in Moscow. His latest book, Stepping Out of Line: Collected (Nonconformist) Essays on Russian-American Relations, 2008-12, is available in paperback and e-book from Amazon.com and affiliated websites worldwide.

"Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the country's parliament, speaking about Russia's success in the defense sector, relations with the US and NATO, social and economic development of the country, as well as Moscow's plans concerning the technological advance in big data, AI and cryptocurrency."

https://sputniknews.com/russia/201803011062103713-putin-address-federal-assembly/​

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

From reading Tolstoy in the original to finding a job, romantic love and new friends: Here are the stories of foreigners who thought they were merely learning grammar rules, but instead discovered an entire new world.

Article originally published on Russia Insider
by Alexandra Guzeva

People really don't understand what 'money' is; let alone how public debt affects the value of 'money'. And relatively few of us understand how money shapes and affects all public policies, both foreign and domestic. 
 
Money is an artificial agreement on a measure of value. If money is backed by some heavy and shiny metal, gold, for example, a given value is assigned to gold that at least has some connection to its practical value in the real world.  But even that connection is dependent on our emotional response to gold.
 
Gold is very attractive. We like how it looks. It has practical value as well. It doesn’t corrode when it gets wet for example, is a great electrical conductor and thus it has industrial value. But its primary value is our emotional response to it. We like how it looks, and how its ‘heft’ feels in our hands. It makes attractive jewelry and other ornamental objects. 
 
The value of money is rooted in human emotions. It only has whatever value that we agree that it has, and our agreement is entirely dependent on how we ‘feel’ about it.
 
Much of the world’s money is just ink on paper, backed by 'confidence' in the integrity of whatever entity prints that money. 'Confidence' is nothing more than an emotional response. It has no ‘heft’ to hold in our hand. It has no shiny appearance that dazzles us in the sun when we gild a state house dome with it. It's less 'weighty' than our emotional response to a heavy shiny metal because it is not something we can hold in our hands. The 'value' of gold is volatile, but the value of 'confidence' is MUCH more so.
 
This Boston Globe article, by Evan Horowitz and contributing Globe staff, seeks to educate us concerning debt, which is a derivative function of money, but the article: 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/12/15/with-interest-rates-low-facts-don-justify-panic-over-national-debt/ZCKx7DKveGyeQZ6tTjfA0J/story.html

...demonstrates that its authors DO NOT really understand money, or debt, or how they affect our lives. The article tells us that "we can always print more money".
 
Well…That is true enough. But the money we print only has a value equal to people's confidence in it. When people lose their confidence in money, it loses value. We can always print money, but we surely all know that printed money is no more than ink-stained paper if people lose confidence in its value. We all surely know the legends of post-WW1 Germany, which suffered from hyper-inflation. People lost their confidence in the value of ink on paper, and were increasingly reluctant to exchange hard goods for it. The legends tell us that it took a wheelbarrow full of paper money to buy a loaf of bread.
 
When things get to that point, people begin to starve to death because the economy ceases to function. Food cannot even be distributed. No one will sell that loaf of bread for ANY amount of money.
 
In such conditions totalitarian powers usually arise and take control, exactly as they did in Germany in the 1930s.
 
In our modern world, we all surely know that the US dollar is the world’s dominant currency. This first came about by a treaty agreement among US allies called the Bretton Woods Agreement because it was signed in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944. That treaty agreement established a stable exchange rate among different nations’ currencies by tying ALL of them to the value of gold. The US dollar was dominant among all currencies simply because 2/3rds of the entire world’s gold supply was owned, at that time, by the US.
 
In 1971, under Richard Nixon, the US broke the Bretton Woods treaty by severing the US dollar from the price of gold. The dollar was no longer backed by gold. It became a ‘fiat’ currency. It was just paper and ink. It only had value because the government said it did. By ‘fiat’.
 
The dollar remained the world’s dominant currency, however, even after severing itself from the gold standard, because the US succeeded in establishing the ‘petro-dollar’. Through various policies and agreements, many of them ‘strong-arm’, with the world’s largest oil producers, we established that the entire world’s oil would be bought and sold in US dollars. 
 
This created a constant demand for dollars in every nation on earth that had to buy oil. The dollar thus became the worlds ‘reserve currency’, because every nation had to have large reserves of dollars in order to assure its energy supply.
 
It has been because of this constant demand for US dollars that we have been able to live, for so many years, on debt, basically on printed money, on a ‘fiat currency’ that is no more than paper. We can’t afford to live on what we earn, so we pay our way by simply printing money.
 
The way we create our money in the US is actually a bankster racket. It’s a racket run by our banking industry. It’s not the government that prints our money, but the Federal Reserve, whose stock is owned by private banks.
 
The Federal Reserve prints the money, then ‘loans’ it to its member banks, which then loan it out at a profit, so the Federal Reserve is essentially a ‘scam’ that provides our banking industry with a constant supply of ‘free’ inventory. Whatever interest rate the banks pay to ‘buy’ /borrow the money, they always mark it up when they ‘sell’ /loan the money at a profit, so the inventory is essentially ‘free’ to them.
 
Few of us, few US citizens, understand that most of what is happening in the world now is driven by US determination to maintain the US dollar as the world’s dominant currency.  The fact that our citizens are so poorly informed makes us susceptible to manipulation by the Elites who control our means of communication.
 
I’ll try to explain in as simple terms as possible. (It’s more complex, but we have to start somewhere).
 
The debt of the US Government has reached 106% of GDP, ‘gross domestic product’, the total value of all wealth and income produced in a nation in one year. Russia’s debt is less than 14% of GDP. China’s is around 21%.
 
Russia and China are leading a large consortium of nations that are sick and tired of being treated poorly, of being exploited, as a result of US world domination. This consortium is comprised of nations in which a majority of the world’s population lives. 
 
This consortium of nations, led by Russia and China, is now intently engaged, so far successfully, in efforts to break the domination of the US dollar. They are establishing a market on which oil is bought and sold in various currencies. Russia, whose oil resources are vast, is an oil exporter whereas China is dependent on imports for most of its oil.
 
The efforts of this consortium are steadily eroding the value of the dollar reserves that are held by nations around the world. Since the value of their reserves are threatened, the nations that hold those reserves are losing confidence in their value. Since the value of the dollar, as a fiat currency, is totally based in confidence, once a critical mass (of loss of confidence) is reached, once nations lose enough confidence in the value of the dollars they hold, they will dump them, and the dollar will then likely hyper-inflate.
 
Since the US economy cannot function other than by constantly printing new money, the US economy will fall in ruins, and US world domination along with it, because no matter how much money we print, it will be worth no more than whatever value ink-stained paper might have. Wheelbarrows full of a hyper-inflated currency will not buy a loaf of bread.
 
The US spends more on military power than all other nations on Earth combined. We can only afford to do this because we pay for it with ‘fiat’ money, with money that is no more than paper and ink. If the world no longer needs dollars to buy oil, then the dollar will hyper-inflate, which means that no matter how much we print, it will have no value.
 
This is the bass drum-beat of world events. This is why our Elites, who own and control all our mass media, including the Boston Globe I read, are demonizing Russia and China. These Elites can see that their world domination is doomed, and that the only thing that can save them is to militarily defeat and destroy the rising economic powers of other nations, led by Russia and China.
 
All this Russia-gate BS is just a lot of hooey, folks. It is a ‘stinking load’ of lies and propaganda intended to prepare us for war against Russia, a nation that has a nuclear arsenal that matches our own, and China, which is also a nuclear-armed nation. History has taught us that this degree of intense ‘demonizing’ of other nations is ALWAYS a precursor to war.
 
In other words, WW3 is looming over ALL of us.  ALL our lives are at stake here, and only FEW of us know what is happening.
 
Meanwhile Russia and China, both, are constantly preaching peace and cooperation among all nations. All nations must respect the essential interests of all other nations. Based on that essential respect, Russia and China are preaching that nations can then negotiate a world economy that will be the most prosperous for ALL of us, for ALL the world’s citizens.
 
Russian and China preach this every day. Hardly a day ever goes by that the Russian and Chinese governments don’t issue some statement, in some form, pleading for world peace based on respect among all nations for the interests of all other nations.
 
They are also putting their money behind what they preach, as more and more nations are being attracted, like bees to the sweet scent of nectar, to China’s ambitious One Belt One Road project, also called the New Silk Road, a massive multi-TRILLION dollar infrastructure project to link the economies of Europe, Asia, and even Africa, through an ultra-modern network of transportation systems, for both economic goods and people, and a communications network to link the populations of all participating nations. 
 
Russia, whose territory spans both Europe and Asia and whose vast natural resources have only barely begun to be tapped, is key to this project, and is fully on board.  
 
Needless to say the US Elites, who are determined to rule the entire world, HATE this whole One Belt One Road concept.
 
Surely we can all see that our nation has been captured under the control of people who are dominated, above all else, by their own uncontrolled GREED. They HATE the very idea of peace based on mutual respect of all nations for the interests of all other nations. The US Elites can maintain ‘peace’ only by forcing the world to bow before US military power.
 
But US military power is based on our paper currency, and US Elites can clearly see that billions of our fellow humans are unhappy with our domination and are working constantly to escape from the grip of the US dollar, through the simple process of buying and selling oil in other nations’ currencies.     
 
In a nutshell, THAT is what’s happening in the world. THAT is the drumbeat behind all the world’s events. The US Elites are desperately holding onto US world domination. They declare this OUT LOUD.
 
It is the official written policy of the US Government that the US must maintain “Full Spectrum Dominance” over the entire Earth and even space. This is the TRUTH. This is FACT. It’s not in any dispute. The US Elites are intent that the US must rule the world.
 
But American citizens are so addled by the constant propaganda and lies that our mass media owned by these same Elites constantly propagate, that we somehow just can’t see what is so very obvious.
 
Under the domination of a relatively small Cabal they proclaim, in essence, “America uber alles!” After all, “full spectrum dominance” is the official declared policy of the US Government.
 
I beseech my fellow American citizens to please WAKE UP! We are NOT the Jedi Warriors. We are The Empire. The heroic Jedi Warriors are fighting against us.
 
Despite that glaringly obvious truth, despite the fact that the US has openly declared that we must rule the Earth, and despite the fact that most of the citizens of Earth consider the US the gravest threat to world peace, American citizens somehow, incredibly, think that WE are the ‘good guys’, just as German citizens once did, even as Hitler rose to power.
 
This is NOT going to turn out well for us? Remember, how did that other “uber-alles” nation end up?
 
We have reduced the cities of many nations to rubble. Our Elites try to convince us, through the immense power of their highly centralized mass media, Russia is a nation full of two-headed demons. As we move ever closer to the brink of nuclear war, can we really not imagine our own cities, our own nation, in ruin, our cities reduced to piles of rubble? 

​R Zwarich
Bent Birch Farm
63 Webber Rd.
Brookfield, MA 01506
774 449-8030

We would like to bring to your attention two great articles by Anatoly Karlin, that were recently published on the RUSSIA INSIDER.    - RAGA News

​All statements in this report are opinions of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

​Some are hopeful the new management in Washington will be able to lift barriers to overseas firearm imports erected over the years, though the going could be slow.

President Donald Trump on Friday (May 26th) said it was “very early” to tell if the United States should lift sanctions on Russia, but that he seeks a “great relationship” with Putin and Russia.

On the campaign trail, Trump’s platform on trade concentrated on American jobs while floating the possibility of a tariff on all imported goods to help ease the current trade deficit. However, the Republican’s position on gun rights promised to curtail federal gun bans and limits. The two concepts, when balanced against one another, leaves open the possibility of action on foreign-made guns currently off-limits to buyers in the U.S.

“Together with our partner — Fime Group, we are working hard on extending our export products line regardless of the administrations,” Maksim Yakovlev, a representative for the Russian firm of Molot-Oruzhie, told Guns.com.

Molot manufactures a number of firearms including the popular Vepr series of rifles currently imported to the U.S. but many of their offerings are restricted from import.

“We have been doing this for a while and every year our product line in the United States is expanding, the current year should be no exception,” Yakovlev said.

Per figures from the International Trade Commission, 204,788 firearms of all kinds were imported from Russia in 2013. This figure plunged to just 9,556 in 2015.

While Molot is not suffering from direct sanctions as it is not a part of Kalashnikov Concern — placed off limits by the Obama administration in 2014 — they are hopeful about the prospect of sending more guns to eager American buyers.

“We respect the choice of American people and hope for further improvement of relations between our governments,” said Yakovlev.
​

                                                           Continue Reading.

by Don Hank

Donald Trump has made some angry statements about the Chinese manipulation of its export market. First of all, does he have a valid point and secondly, what is he likely to do about this if he does?
In the early 1970s President Richard Nixon eliminated the gold standard in US finance. This was a threat to the US dollar. To compensate for this risk, Nixon did two things:  
1) He made a petrodollar agreement with the Saudis whereby the US would defend the Saudi royal family in return for the Saudis’ using US sovereign bonds as their reserve currency. Bloomberg just recently broke details of this agreement but reported that the Saudis wanted it to remain secret and that more details could still be unknown.  This policy helped prop up the value of the USD. 
2) At the same time, he promoted better relations with China, with which there were no diplomatic relations. The establishment of diplomatic relations would open the door for US-China trade, allowing Americans to purchase goods at a lower price, effectively offsetting the lower value of the dollar caused by the loss of the gold standard.
The subsequent choice of China by Congress as a trading partner was in part strategic, intended to punish Russia for its invasion of Afghanistan.  This was the first time that the US government used China as a weapon against Russia, the country that the US government most feared. 
The opening of trade with China was confusing to many Americans, who wondered why one communist country could be allowed to trade with the US while another could not. 
Most naively believed the US when it said the proposal was only about trade.  
Temporary most favored nation status for China was finally passed in 1980 during the Carter administration, based in part on the argument that this would give the US a major advantage by allowing the Chinese to buy from the. Despite this propaganda, an enormous trade deficit arose with China and it only grows bigger every year. 
Incredibly, this old Russia-China double standard has survived for over 60 years, well into the 21st Century, where the US has slapped sanctions on Russia while rewarding China with virtually free trade conditions, even though both countries are seen as a military threat and the favored one is communist while the disadvantaged one is not.  Clearly, the idea of creating a divide between China and Russia, at Russia’s expense, is part of Western foreign policy and it has failed colossally so far, just like most policies that are sold to the public for one ostensible purpose but are based on another -- ulterior -- motive.
Today, there is less justification for such a pro-China, anti-Russia policy than ever because -- largely as a result of this meddling -- Russia and China have become stronger economic and military partners that together are now seen in the West as a joint threat to US hegemony.
Now for the first time in 60 years, a US president is challenging this old time worn policy of favoring China and making Russia a scapegoat for all Western ills. President-elect Donald Trump has spoken of conciliation between the US and Russia in his campaign and now speaks increasingly harshly of China.
No one knows if this harshness will translate into policy because Trump often says things and then changes his mind or makes promises that he later realizes he cannot keep. 
The bone of contention in US-China relations (and in EU-China relations) is the fact that the WTO had in 2001 declared that China was a non market economy and had issued various criteria for determining its progress in acquiring market economy status (MES), a status that would allow trade with the West with little or no tariffs or duties levied on Chinese goods.
There is currently no question that China does not have a market economy because the government still subsidizes certain goods such as steel, aluminum and ceramics, which are therefore still subject to trade duties in various Western countries.
Now in 2001, the WTO granted a limited trade status for China despite its not being a market economy, and gave China 15 years to prove itself.   
During the first 15 years, according to the WTO protocol, the standard price is taken as the internal market price in China of the good in question, or alternatively, the price observed in a similar country (“surrogate” country) for said good. The deviation indicates the degree of government influence and hence the height of the trade barrier to be applied in the West. The latter method has been used in the EU. 
After these 15 years have elapsed, this alternative method may no longer be used. The deadline is upon us -- December 2016.

However, the Chinese government site xinhuanet.com interprets this part of the protocol loosely, and wrongly, as follows:
“…according to the international rule, the protocols for China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 dictate that China will automatically switch over to market economy status when the Surrogate Country approach expires on Dec. 11, 2016.”
Going hand in hand with the granting of most favored nation status to China was President Carter’s decision to confer diplomatic relations on China, which mandated cutting off relations with Taiwan, angering the Taiwanese.
By accepting a phone call from the Taiwanese president last week, Trump showed that he may in fact be weighing reversing, or at least modifying, policies established in the Nixon and Carter administrations regarding China.
China’s reaction to both the Taiwan phone call and his remarks about Chinese chicanery was anger. 
Coupled with Trump’s benevolent gestures toward Russia, this could signal a geopolitical plate shift in US foreign policy.
Trump will need to exercise extreme caution and take a crash course in diplomacy to see us through the next 4 years without a major misstep. However, if we analyze the approaches taken by Nixon and Carter, we see that they were radical upsets of the world order and each served to strongly favor some nations while sullying others. We have come to see this as the American way.
Donald J. Trump has the opportunity to restore a balance without stepping too hard on certain toes. He has already said, for example, that he opposes free trade agreements, like TPP, which are designed to snub China and Russia. After all, Trump says he believes in free trade, and free trade is free trade, not a political weapon to punish foes. Will he be wise enough to recognize this and respect everyone's interests?
Unfortunately, Trump probably has no US advisors who will sway him not to favor some nations while slighting others. Nonetheless, such a balanced approach to foreign affairs would be wise. Vladimir Putin is a master of this approach. He calls it the multipolar world.

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French version: 

Trump et le statut d'économie de marché pour la Chine

Par Don Hank

Donald Trump a fait quelques déclarations en colère au sujet de la manipulation chinoise de son marché d'exportation. On se demande tout d'abord : Ces déclarations sont-elles valable ?  Et puis:  qu'est-ce qu'il est susceptible de faire à ce sujet?
Au début des années 1970, le président Richard Nixon a éliminé l'étalon-or des finances américaines. C'était une menace pour le dollar américain. Pour compenser ce risque, Nixon a fait deux choses:
1) Il a conclu un accord de pétrodollars avec les Saoudiens, dans le cadre duquel les forces armées américaines défendraient la famille royale saoudienne en échange du fait que les Saoudiens utiliseraient des obligations souveraines américaines comme monnaie de réserve. Bloomberg vient de révéler des détails de ce vieil accord, mais a signalé que les Saoudiens voulaient qu'il reste secret, ce qui laisse entrevoir que d’autres détails pourraient être encore inconnus. Cette politique a contribué à soutenir la valeur de l'USD.
2) En même temps, il a promu de meilleures relations avec la Chine, avec laquelle il n'y avait pas de relations diplomatiques jusqu’alors. L'établissement de relations diplomatiques ouvrirait la porte au commerce entre les États-Unis et la Chine, permettant aux Américains d'acheter des marchandises à un prix inférieur, compensant ainsi la perte de valeur du dollar causée par l’abolition de l'étalon-or.
Le choix de la Chine par le Congrès en tant que partenaire commercial en 1980 était en partie stratégique, destiné à punir la Russie pour son invasion de l'Afghanistan. C'était la première fois que le gouvernement américain utilisa la Chine comme arme contre la Russie, le pays que le gouvernement américain craignait le plus. 
L'ouverture des échanges avec la Chine était source de confusion pour beaucoup d'Américains, qui se demandaient pourquoi un pays communiste pourrait être autorisé à commercer avec les Etats-Unis alors qu'un autre ne l’était pas.
La plupart des américains croyait naïvement que le motif était purement commercial. 
Le statut provisoire de nation la plus favorisée pour la Chine a été finalement adopté en 1980 au cours de l'administration Carter, en partie en raison de l'argument – qui s'est avéré être faux – selon lequel cette mesure donnerait aux États-Unis un avantage commercial en permettant aux Chinois d’acheter des marchandises américaines. 
Invraisemblablement, cette double norme russo-chinoise a survécu pendant plus de 60 ans, jusqu’au présent, moment où les États-Unis ont imposé des sanctions à la Russie tout en récompensant la Chine avec pratiquement conditions de libre-échange, bien que ces deux pays sont perçus tous les deux comme représentant une menace militaire commune. De plus, le favorisé est communiste tandis que le défavorisé ne l'est pas. Ce qui laisse entrevoir que la politique des États-Unis de s'opposer à la Russie n'a jamais été fondée sur le communisme, mais plutôt sur une crainte et une haine russophobe innée. Rien de moins qu’un racisme irrationel. L'intention de créer un fossé entre la Chine et la Russie, aux frais de la Russie,  a failli colossalement jusqu'à présent, tout comme la plupart des politiques qui sont ostensiblement basées sur un but raisonnable mais qui cachent une arrière-pensée.
Aujourd'hui, cette politique pro-Chine et anti-Russie est moins justifiée que jamais – en grande partie à cause des sinistres intrigues occidentales détestées à juste titre par ces deux pays – la Russie et la Chine étant devenus des partenaires économiques et militaires plus forts que jamais qui, ensemble, sont maintenant vus en Occident comme une menace commune à l'hégémonie américaine.
Pour la première fois en 60 ans, un président américain conteste cette vieille politique de favoriser la Chine et de faire de la Russie un bouc émissaire pour tous les maux occidentaux. Le président élu Donald Trump a parlé de la conciliation entre les États-Unis et la Russie dans sa campagne et parle maintenant de plus en plus durement au sujet de la Chine.
Personne ne sait si cette dureté se traduira en politique, car Trump dit souvent des choses, puis change d'avis ou fait des promesses qu'il ne peut pas tenir.
L'OMC a déclaré en 2001 que la Chine n'était pas une économie de marché et a publié divers critères pour déterminer ses progrès dans l'acquisition du statut d'économie de marché (SEM).
Il ne fait aucun doute que la Chine n'a pas d'économie de marché parce que le gouvernement subventionne toujours certains biens tels que l'acier, l'aluminium et la céramique, qui sont donc soumis à des droits d’importation dans divers pays occidentaux.
En 2001, l'OMC a accordé un statut commercial limité à la Chine, bien qu'elle n’a pas d’économie de marché, et a donné à la Chine 15 ans pour remédier à cette situation.  
Au cours des 15 premières années, selon le protocole de l'OMC, le prix normal est considéré comme le prix du marché intérieur en Chine du bien en question, ou bien le prix observé dans un pays similaire («pays analogue») pour ledit bien. L'écart indique le degré d'influence du gouvernement et donc la hauteur de l'obstacle commercial à appliquer en Occident. Cette dernière méthode a été utilisée, par exemple, dans l'UE.
Une fois ce temps écoulé, cette méthode alternative ne peut plus être utilisée. La date limite  – Décembre 2016 – s’approche vite.
Toutefois, le site du gouvernement chinois xinhuanet.com interprète cette partie du protocole de façon lâche, et à tort, comme suit:
«... selon la règle internationale, les protocoles pour l'adhésion de la Chine à l'Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC) en 2001 dictent que la Chine passera automatiquement au statut d'économie de marché lorsque la méthode par pays analogue expirera le 11 décembre 2016».
La décision du président Carter de conférer des relations diplomatiques à la Chine, qui a imposé de couper les relations avec Taïwan, mettant en colère les Taiwanais, va de pair avec l'octroi du statut de nation la plus favorisée à la Chine.
En acceptant un appel téléphonique du président taiwanais la semaine dernière, Trump a montré qu'il pourrait en fait envisager une inversion ou du moins une modification, des politiques mises en œuvre par les administrations Nixon et Carter vis-à-vis la Chine.
La réaction de la Chine tant à l'appel téléphonique avec Taiwan qu’aux remarques de Trump sur la chicanerie chinoise a été furieuse.
Couplé aux gestes bienveillants de Trump envers la Russie, cela pourrait signifier un changement de plaque tectonique dans la politique étrangère américaine.
Trump devra faire preuve d'une extrême prudence et doit suivre un cours intensif en diplomatie ou bien nous pourrons assister à des erreurs épatantes pendant les 4 prochaines années. Cependant, si nous analysons les démarches adoptés par Nixon et Carter, nous voyons qu'elles aussi représentaient des bouleversements radicaux de l'ordre mondial et chacune a servi à favoriser fortement certaines nations tout en souillant d'autres. Nous nous sommes habitués à voir cette distortion des choses comme le modèle américain.
Donald J. Trump a l'occasion de rétablir un équilibre sans trop froisser certaines susceptibilités. Il a déjà dit, par exemple, qu'il s'oppose à des accords de libre-échange, comme le TPP (qui visent à exclure la Chine et la Russie). Après tout, Trump dit qu'il croit au libre-échange, et le libre-échange n’est pas une arme politique pour punir les ennemis. Sera-t-il assez sage pour reconnaître cela et respecter les intérêts de tous?
Malheureusement, Trump n'a probablement pas de conseillers américains qui l'incitent à ne pas favoriser certaines nations tout en dénigrant les autres. Néanmoins, une telle démarche équilibrée et délicate dans les affaires étrangères serait judicieuse pour une superpuissance comme les Etats Unis. Vladimir Poutine est un maître de cette démarche. Il l'appelle le monde multipolaire.

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All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

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