Trade flap ruffles feathers in Moscow and Washington

An escalating game of chicken between Russia and the United States over terms of trade in poultry and steel is evoking unexpected passions from notoriously apathetic Russians, many of whom say it's about time the Kremlin started defending local business.

A Russian ban on US poultry imports, announced at the weekend, is an act of historical justice, says one farmers' representative. "Our poultry industry was vaporized a decade ago, and never given a chance to revive," says Yury Chernichenko, leader of the Peasants Party of Russia, an association of private farmers.

Mr. Chernichenko says that the US flooded Russia with frozen chicken parts in the form of food aid during the winter of 1991-92, as the USSR was collapsing and famine was widely predicted.

Much bigger and juicier than the stringy Soviet-era fowl Russians were accustomed to, the new arrivals quickly won the nickname of "Bush legs" - a tribute to then-President George Bush Sr.

But market positions won through humanitarian assistance paid commercial dividends later on. Bush legs accounted for more than half the chicken sold in Russia last year, at prices the floundering local producers can't match. A kilo (2.2 pounds) of US frozen chicken typically costs about 45 rubles ($1.50) while the same amount of locally grown fresh poultry is 60 rubles ($2) or more.

"Our American competitors are like an aircraft carrier task force, while we are like a little fleet of row boats," says Mr. Chernichenko. "We need an equalizer."

The looming trade war has provoked some of the toughest exchanges of rhetoric since the cold war ended, and threatens to inflict real economic damage on both sides. Tariffs imposed on steel imports to the US by President George W. Bush last week could cost Russian producers up to $600 million annually, and cripple one of the country's few viable industrial exports.

The embargo on American frozen chicken, if it sticks, will close down an $800-million-a- year business that accounts for almost half of all US poultry exports, and hit hard in major producing states like Mississippi.

US officials say the ban is not justified scientifically and are accusing Moscow of protectionism.

Officials on both sides claim that the issues of steel and chicken are unrelated, but few here are buying that.

"Bush is acting to protect US steel producers, but it's contrary to the principles he preaches to the world and it directly hurts Russia," says Ruslan Grinberg, deputy director of the independent Institute for International Economic and Political Studies in Moscow. "Obviously we can't put up with that. There must be a Russian response."

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