Corporate America Is Not Raring to Return to Russia if Trump Lifts Sanctions

The Trump administration is sending a startling message to corporate America: After three years as an international pariah, Russia could once again be open for business.

President Trump is pressuring Ukraine to accept a deal to end the war. And Marco Rubio, his secretary of state, told a delegation from Moscow in Riyadh last week that the United States and Russia could pursue “potentially historic economic partnerships” and “incredible opportunities,” if Moscow ended its war.

The question, though, is whether American businesses are interested.

And the answer, analysts and investors agreed, is not likely.

“I don’t think America’s big businesses are going to rush back into Russia fast, if at all, and surely not soon,” said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.

The invasion of Ukraine launched by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in February 2022 caused a sudden and swift flight of foreign companies as the United States, Europe and other countries imposed punishing sanctions and cut off most trade. Since then, more than 1,000 corporations have left or curtailed operations, according to a database compiled by the Yale School of Management.

The Russia that they left, however, is not the Russia they would be returning to.

The country’s war-driven economy is struggling with 21 percent interest rates, labor shortages and a shrinking number of middle-class consumers.

Then there is the unpredictable business environment in a country where the rule of law can easily shapeshift into the ruler’s law. American companies must contend with the risk of Kremlin decrees that impose new fees, taxes and price controls; restrict the ability to send profits and dividends back home, sell assets or make management decisions; and seize private businesses.

In just the last month, the government has stepped up efforts to expropriate Russian-owned businesses as well. And on Friday, Mr. Putin declared that he wanted Russian companies to have “certain advantages” over foreign ones “that return to the market.”

There is also the possibility of further policy shifts on Russia in Washington, if not now, then possibly in four years, after the next election.

“No one is going to spend a lot of money in Russia if they think the policy is going to change overnight,” said Mark Walker, a senior adviser in the sovereign advisory practice at Lazard, an investment bank. And Moscow cannot be trusted to stay open to foreign investment. “It’s a regime that’s hard to do business with,” he said.

Even if the United States were to lift all of its sanctions, thousands of others imposed by the European Union, Britain, Japan and other countries could remain in place, hampering supply chains and threatening company profits. On Monday, the European Union approved a 16th package of sanctions against Russia.

“The Russian business environment is extremely difficult, the risk of expropriation is high and the Russian economy is not exactly booming,” said Agathe Demarais, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The American firms that have stayed in Russia don’t fully control their revenues and assets, Ms. Demarais said. Companies deemed “unfriendly” by the Kremlin often had to sell their businesses for pennies on the dollar and pay a 35 percent surcharge — labeled a “voluntary” contribution — to the government. Those that remained have been barred from returning a large chunk of their profits to their home country.

Other Western firms like Danone, Carlsberg and the Germany energy company Uniper have had their assets seized.

The Trump administration is pursuing what most analysts believe are fanciful economic opportunities in Russia as it has targeted Mexico and Canada, which are America’s biggest trading partners. U.S. manufacturers have complained that the president’s threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on those two longtime allies would cause severe harm by increasing costs and disrupting supply chains.

Russia, of course, controls vast swaths of land a storehouse of oil and gas and a nuclear arsenal. But it has been a bit player in the global economy. Before its troops invaded Ukraine, the country was responsible for just 1.7 percent of the world’s total output.

Trade with the United States was minuscule. In 2021, exports to Russia accounted for 0.4 percent of total U.S. exports — roughly the same amount as Honduras. And most multinationals in Russia earned no more than 1 percent of their global revenues there, according to researchers at Yale.

“Even before 2022, the environment was already challenging, but there was money to be made,” said Elina Ribakova, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “Now the risks have increased dramatically, but there is no money to be made.”

In the 2000s, the soaring price of oil fueled a growing Russian middle class with an appetite for foreign goods and cars. “That dynamic no longer exists,” said Ms. Ribakova, who is also vice president for foreign policy at the Kyiv School of Economics.

And Russia’s No. 1 export — oil and gas — directly competes with the United States’ own energy sector. Even U.S. oil companies that once had operations in Russia, like Exxon Mobil, do not appear eager to make big investments there.

The United States, the European Union and dozens of other countries have also severed a wide range of financial ties with Russia. They jointly barred Russia from using Swift, the system used around the world to complete financial transactions. And they froze billions of dollars owned by the Russian government but held in Western banks.

The United States, which dominates global banking, could abandon this united front. Mr. Trump could decide to permit American banks to once again process transactions in dollars involving Russia. That would remove an enormous barrier that has crippled many companies’ ability to conduct business with Russia.

According to Yale’s tally, roughly two dozen American companies, including franchised restaurant outlets of Subway and T.G.I. Fridays, are still doing business in Russia. Dozens of companies are operating but have postponed new investments and slimmed down operations.

Companies that stayed in Russia would probably welcome an end to U.S. sanctions. And Russian officials are trying to pique American interest. On Friday, the first deputy prime minister, Denis Manturov, said the government would consider allowing Boeing to resume the purchase of titanium if the company was ready to return, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

But deterrents to re-entering Russia remain.

Unwinding the tangle of sanctions — as well as countermeasures enacted by the Russian government — would be a long and complicated process. So would sorting out the legal and financial mishmash left by the exit of foreign companies.

Mike Mayo, a bank analyst at Wells Fargo, said it’s unlikely that any American banks would return to Russia. “Never say never,” he said, but “Wall Street has become much more surgical about where they make their investments relative to times past.”

Citigroup had the largest presence in Russia of any American bank but has mostly exited. There’s almost no chance that it would return, particularly since it has been retreating on consumer banking in most global markets. A spokeswoman for Citigroup declined to comment.

Many companies are still sitting on losses. PIMCO, one of the world’s largest asset managers, saw the value of its Russian bond holdings decline by more than $1 billion in 2022.

“I think there will be more interest in recovering old investments rather than taking on new risk,” said Brad Setser, an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Even some debt investors who built their careers betting on dicey outcomes said it was too soon to be thinking about returning to Russia.

As Ms. Ribakova at the Peterson Institute said of Russia: “The biggest problem here is just that there’s not money to be made.”

Maureen Farrell, Joe Rennison, Danielle Kaye and Niraj Chokshi contributed reporting.