US revokes normal trade relations with Russia: Biden

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - President Joe Biden on Friday announced that the US has revoked normal trade relations with Russia.

The move will ramp up economic pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin and further isolate Moscow from the global stage, Biden said in a press briefing at the White House.

"Later today … with other NATO allies and G7 members, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the EU, we are going to jointly announce several new steps to squeeze Putin," he told.

"First, each of our nations are going to take steps to deny most favored nation status to Russia," he said, which meant two countries had an agreement to trade with each other with low tariffs, with few barriers to trade and highest imports allowed.

In the US, this is called permanent normal trade relations (PNTR), Biden noted.

"Revoking PNTR for Russia is going to make harder for Russia to do business with the US, and doing it in unison with other nations (that) make up half of the global economy will be another crushing blow to the Russian economy already suffering very badly from our sanctions," he explained.