MOSCOW, December 26 (RIA Novosti) – The United States has lost millions of dollars as the result of a Russian ban on American meat products, and not billions as was recently erroneously reported in an interview with a Russian newspaper, US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said Thursday.
The US has lost $5-6 million as a result of the ban, not $5-6 billion, McFaul wrote in a link to the interview with the Kommersant business daily on Facebook.
“That was a mistake,” McFaul wrote, though he did not say who was responsible for the error. The ambassador had not replied to a written request for clarification by the time this article was published.
In the interview with Kommersant published Wednesday, McFaul had said that Russia’s ban on US pork and beef imports over concerns about the growth additive ractopamine, which took effect in February, was a big problem for the US.
About two dozen countries have approved ractopamine as safe for use, but the European Union, China, Taiwan and several other countries have joined Russia in banning use of the drug.
