ASTANA — The United States should establish permanent normal trade relations with Kazakhstan and offer greater economic opportunities rather than pressure the country to choose between Washington, Moscow and Beijing, Congressman Jimmy Panetta said during a Hudson Institute discussion on Sept.
2, as Washington weighs how to deepen its economic and strategic engagement with Central Asia. ongressman Panetta and Ken Moriyasu, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, on Sept. 2, as Washington weighs how to deepen its economic and strategic engagement with Central Asia.
Panetta, a California Democrat and a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said repealing the Jackson-Vanik amendment would send an important signal of Washington’s commitment as it seeks new critical-mineral suppliers and greater influence in Central Asia.
He noted that closer engagement would serve U.S. interests at a time when securing diversified critical-mineral supply chains has become a growing priority in Washington. His remarks followed a House Ways and Means Committee hearing in which lawmakers considered legislation granting Kazakhstan permanent normal trade relations.
Jackson-Vanik is holding back U.S.-Kazakhstan ties Panetta’s assessment iss straightforward: when the US retreats from a strategically important space, competitors move quickly to fill the gap. At the center of that conversation was the decades-old Jackson-Vanik amendment, which Panetta described bluntly as a “Cold War relic.” The Jackson-Vanik amendment, adopted in 1974 to pressure the Soviet Union over restrictions on emigration, links normal U.S.
trade relations to freedom of movement. Kazakhstan has met its requirements for decades but remains formally covered by the law. Panetta framed the continued application of Jackson-Vanik as a contradiction in U.S. policy: Washington is seeking closer economic ties with Kazakhstan while retaining a trade mechanism created during the Cold War.
Panetta called the repeal a “huge step to take to demonstrate symbolically our commitment at a very low cost to the future of not just Kazakh-U.S. relations,” while also noting that it would benefit the U.S. by helping diversify supplies of rare-earth and other critical minerals.
Yet the significance of Jackson-Vanik in this debate goes beyond economics, because the case being made in Washington is also about how the U.S. assesses Kazakhstan politically and whether it recognizes the context in which the country is pursuing domestic change.
Panetta pointed specifically to reforms under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. He cited Kazakhstan’s single seven-year presidential term as evidence of political reform, while acknowledging that “more can be done.” “These are big steps that President Tokayev is taking in the face of a very tough history of this country in order to show that it is willing to make the types of changes that are needed to enhance its democracy and uphold its democratic values.
I think it is a major reform not just for Kazakhstan, but for the region, because I guarantee you, Kazakhstan’s biggest neighbors, China and Russia, didn’t like to hear that,” Panetta said. Panetta described Kazakhstan as a country with exceptionally deep ties to both Russia and China and said that expecting Astana to sever those relationships would be strategically unrealistic.