As Russia’s war against Ukraine enters its third year, Japan has joined with its allies around the world in continuing trade sanctions against Russia that were imposed shortly after the February 2022 invasion. The sanctions on Russia by Japan and allied countries focus on Russia’s “most favored nation” status as a WTO signatory. This concept, a centerpiece of WTO membership, means that each of a nation’s WTO trading partners gets the same trade benefits (e.g., low tariff rates) that the nation’s “most favored” trade partner does. Removing that status from one of its trading partners enables a nation to impose measures that hinder or block trade with the other country.
Such sanctions can be product-specific or all-encompassing. Countries often place sanctions on products that are important to the offending country, that “put the most bite” into its trade, so as to put maximum pressure on that country to stop its injurious activity. Japan’s sanctions on Russia are broad and include increased tariffs on imported seafood, among an array of other goods and services. For example, Japanese tariffs on its imports of Russian salmon rose from 3.5 percent to 5 percent with the sanction’s imposition, and imported crab is now dutiable at 6 percent, from its pre-sanctions level of 4 percent. Seafood trade between Japan and Russia is important to both countries, but Russia has fewer alternative sources of imports and alternative markets for exports than Japan does, and therefore the cost to Japanese interests of the sanctions imposed on Russia have been deemed to be worth it by Japan’s Diet (parliament) which authorized the extension in March of this year.