Do not get used to being locked up – Newspaper Kommersant No. 210 (7411) dated 11/14/2022

The announcement of the Russian Federation by the US Department of Commerce as a country with a non-market economy is an example of news that in itself is of minimal importance now, but will have a strong enough impact on the future of state regulation in Russia itself.

The status of a “country with a market economy” as such has a very indirect relation to US foreign policy itself. Since 1930, since the adoption of the next law on the federal customs tariff, the US Department of Commerce has determined, according to five main criteria, the classification of a certain country or territory as “market” or “non-market” for purely technical needs – eighty years ago, the United States decided to objectify the principles by which claims of illegal competition by foreigners can be substantiated, which then transformed into a system of anti-dumping duties. “Antidumping” by that time had a strict “scientific” justification, it was considered possible to calculate “objective” prices – and “countries that traded at a loss on the world market” (and in 1930 it was the states that traded, more precisely, their trading divisions – for example , in the USSR), and were recognized as non-market. An audit of the already obtained status of the economy is carried out once a year: in 2021, the Russian Federation was again recognized as a “market” economy.

Proceeding from this and from the fact that for the first time the Russian Federation became a “market” in the understanding of the US Department of Commerce only in 2002 (and not in 1992, for example), it is easy to understand what has changed. It’s not about the military operation in Ukraine, not about the share of state property (criterion 4), not about state control over prices, which in the Russian Federation, unlike the USSR, is practically non-existent (criterion 5), and not about the freedom to bargain for wages (criterion 2) – nothing has changed with them over the year (there were problems with criteria 1, 4 and, to a lesser extent, 2 until 2022). The Russian Federation became “non-market” according to criterion 3 – presidential decrees restricting the work of investors from unfriendly countries, and according to criterion 1 – just restrictions on the convertibility of the ruble would not lead to restrictions, but the bans on the conversion and withdrawal of dividends from the Russian Federation exactly correspond to the definitions of the United States. The remark of the Ministry of Economy of the Russian Federation about the unfairness of the US decisions on the basis that the restrictions are temporary sounds weak: the list is reviewed once a year, it is also temporary. Now it’s like this.

True, the title of “non-market” for the Russian economy will change almost nothing: anti-dumping duties are imposed against existing exports to the United States, and Russian exports to the United States, which could be unfairly calculated using the formula for non-market economies, now simply do not exist due to sanctions. The problem is that in the coming years, state regulation in the Russian Federation will develop de facto in the absence of such exports. It doesn’t matter if you are locked up or you locked yourself in, it is important not to get used to being locked up, but this will happen.