WASHINGTON -- Moldova should be exempted from the Jackson-Vanik amendment to allow for normal trade relations with the United States, according to a group of experts participating in a Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe briefing in Washington on January 31.
Matthew Rojansky of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said that, although Moldova has been a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) since 2001, it receives only temporary exemption from Jackson-Vanik on a yearly basis.
William Hill, former head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Mission to Moldova, said, based on Moldova’s record the past few decades and recent developments in particular, repealing Jackson-Vanik for Moldova is long overdue.
The Jackson-Vanik amendment enacted in 1974 was intended to affect U.S. trade relations with countries of the Communist Bloc that restricted freedom of emigration and other human rights.
In 2011, Vice President Joe Biden urged that the law be repealed.