On April 8, 2010, Presidents Medvedev and Obama inked the historic “New START” treaty during their meeting in Prague. Under the terms of the agreement, the stockpiles of nuclear weapons at the disposal of each country would go down from 2 200 to 1 550 – an arsenal of the two superpowers during the Khrushchev and Kennedy years. The new accord was a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991 that lapsed in December of last year.

While the intentions of the movers and shakers in Russian-American relations are no doubt sincere, the world of political reality today is more cynical than it was in the early 1990s. In order to clear the Senate, the new treaty needs 67 votes, while the Democratic Party can count on only 59 supporters.

Recognizing that problems will come up in the ratification process in the United States, President Medvedev emphasized in his address to the members of the Russian parliament that they should synchronize their actions on the treaty with those of their counterparts in the U.S. Senate. The President advised that Russian lawmakers need to ratify the agreement not sooner and not later than their American colleagues.

The general sentiment of mutuality in the Russian-American dialogue is by no means limited to the military domain. During the discussion hosted at the Brookings Institution in Washington on April 13, President Medvedev said that America and Russia should not try to mentor each other, but must strive for a long-term pragmatic relationship.

“Our relations have an uneasy history,” said the Russian head of state. “At one moment we want to choke each other in our embrace, and at another we come to find that there is an abyss between us.”

In the course of his address, Mr. Medvedev quoted Barack Obama, who said during an earlier visit to Moscow that the U.S. needs a strong, peaceful, and prospering Russia. “Russia needs a responsible, peaceful, well-respected, and developing America.”

One of the most important issues for international business in Russia is the country’s status with the WTO. Dmitriy Medvedev said that the American side assured Russia that the U.S. would help move accession talks along in 2009, but no practical result materialized. “Russia is counting on America’s support in its efforts to join the World Trade Organization,” Medvedev noted.

The restoration of trust between the United States and Russia will take time. For now, the two countries exchanged promises to ease protectionist measures. Last year’s figures illustrated a significant drop in Russian-American trade, from roughly USD 36 billion to USD 23 billion, according to the Foreign Trade Division of the U.S. Census Bureau. What gives hope for the future is that the positive trends in the trade relationship are already noticeable. In the first quarter of the current year, the bilateral trade figure was USD 5.849 billion – an increase of almost 18 percent year-on-year.