The U.S. embassy in Moscow is encouraging American business leaders to attend Russia’s premier economic forum for the first time since the Ukraine crisis, even as political tensions between the Cold War rivals continue to rise.
Ambassador Jon Huntsman, appointed by President Donald Trump last year, has been promoting the May 24-26 event to U.S. business and plans to attend.
“We have a lot of American businesses who are going to be there,” he said in a video posted Thursday on the embassy’s Twitter account. “It’s a very important time to talk about the future economic relationship between the United States and Russia.”
The U.S. government had in past years actively lobbied executives to steer clear of the event, the Kremlin’s main annual pitch for foreign investors, after Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014. U.S. sanctions have expanded steadily ever since, hitting top companies and businessmen last month and sending the ruble sliding.
Tone Change
This year, “They’ve stopped discouraging participation at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum and, on the contrary, are encouraging companies to come,” Alexis Rodzianko, who runs the American Chamber of Commerce in Moscow, said of U.S. officials. “They’re saying the more important people you send, the better. There’s been a change in tone and message.”
Huntman’s predecessor, John Tefft, attended the forum last year, ending a three-year hiatus for official U.S. representation but keeping a low profile without any pitch to businesses to participate.
Still, Huntsman’s powers of persuasion appear to be lacking. Despite President Vladimir Putin headlining the glitzy event, a preliminary list of attendees shows a lack of firepower from U.S. companies, as Russia’s sluggish economic outlook rather than political pressure keeps senior executives away.
U.S. firms active in Russia seem to be mostly content to send local executives, with the exception of ExxonMobil Production Co.’s Neil Duffin and the head of International Paper Company, Mark Stephen. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said it would send Chairman Bob Moritz. Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait will moderate a panel with Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on May 25.
Russia’s Davos
The ambassador’s efforts come as Trump has repeatedly pushed for a better relationship with the Russian leader, and invited Putin to Washington when after he won a record fourth term in March.
Yet any personal desire to engage with Putin hasn’t stopped Russian-U.S. relations from deteriorating to their lowest point in decades. The two nuclear superpowers are squaring off from Iran and Syria to Ukraine.
Putin uses the event in his hometown, modeled on the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to showcase Russian business opportunities. Russia will need investment if he is to achieve his target, announced at his inauguration on Monday, of boosting Russia’s economy to the fifth-largest in the world by the end of his six-year term. He’s announced that goal in the past but weak growth has left Russia falling short.
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