While U.S. President Barack Obama is the first American leader since Ronald Reagan not to visit Ukraine while in office, his top emissaries have made multiple trips during his administration.
The latest high-level visit came this week from Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, the billionaire businesswoman from Chicago whose Jewish paternal great-grandfather, Nicholas J. Pritzker, emigrated from Ukraine to America 135 years ago.
She is making her third trip to Ukraine as commerce secretary to talk business and, this time, to lead Obama’s delegation for the week-long 75th anniversary commemorations of the Babyn Yar massacres. Babyn Yar is the Kyiv ravine where Nazi German soldiers killed 100,000 people — two-thirds of whom were Jews — during their two-year occupation of Ukraine during World War II.
Pritzker told the Kyiv Post in an interview on Sept. 29 that the honor is intensely personal.
No to indifference
“In the face of that kind of atrocity, we can’t afford indifference. We have to do is speak out against hate,” Pritzker said. We have to uphold the ideals of inclusion and tolerance and this in an opportunity to step back and reflect on that and how important it is that our leaders uphold the idea.”
Pritzker’s other focus, of course, is on the economy and trade. Pritzker played an instrumental role in the first U.S.-Ukraine Business Forum held in Washington, D.C., on July 13, 2015, to help drum up investor interest in Ukraine. While she said Ukraine has made progress on the rule-of-law and anti-corruption fronts since then, much more remains to be done before investors are willing to commit more deeply.
Big investors visit
She was accompanied by representatives of such major companies as Lockheed Martin, Cargill, Citigroup, GE Transportation and Westinghouse.
She praised Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who succeeded Arseniy Yatsenyuk in April, for making difficult but necessary decisions such as increasing gas tariffs, starting judicial reforms and making improvements on tax-and-customs policies.
However, Pritzker cited the need for stronger and swifter efforts in combatting corruption, protecting intellectual property, improving tax and customs policies and privatization of land and 3,500 state-owned enterprises.
She and the business representatives met with President Petro Poroshenko, Groysman and members of parliament to convey a sense of urgency.
‘Take action now’
“At a time when the prime minister and president want more foreign direct investment, they need to know what is preventing companies from making that investment,” Pritzker said. “They need to take action now. The moment is not going to remain forever. There are other countries and other opportunities for companies and they’ll lose interest if they don’t see continuous progress.”
While Ukraine’s gross domestic product, after plunging in the last two years, is likely to grow this year by 1 percent — to almost $100 billion, it’s not enough to build an economy that Ukrainians want, Pritzker said.
6-8% growth needed
Ukraine needs 6-8 percent annual GDP growth to achieve its “goals and objectives,” Pritzker said. “We know how hard reform is on the people of Ukraine. We also know this economic growth is not possible without reform…there’s a real opportunity — that, obviously, your paper plays in holding up standards, holding people accountable, pointing out when they’re not living up to the objectives they say they want to achieve…They can’t take their foot off the gas.”
At a U.S. Commerce Department-sponsored workshop on commercial law development in Kyiv, Pritzker in remarks on Sept. 28 emphasized the same themes. “The issues surrounding corruption — both real and perceived — continue to negatively impact Ukraine’s potential for trade and investment.” And: “Let’s not forget that, if you do not follow through on your ambitions, the businesses you hope will invest here will start to look elsewhere.”
No Obama trip
Pritzker rejected the idea that the lack of a presidential visit by Obama during his eight years in office means that Ukraine is not one of America’s top priorities.
“The Ukrainians and certainly the government should recognize what a significant role the United States is playing in helping their government really pave the way for the future of a free and independent and prosperous Ukraine,” Pritzker said. “I have been here three times. President Poroshenko, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and now Prime Minister Groysman have been to the United States any multitude of times in the last couple of years.”
‘Very deep’ relationship
The bilateral relationship is “very deep and quite specific and not superficial at all,” Pritzker said. “I don’t think I would make anything of that (Obama’s failure to visit Ukraine) because certainly President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Groysman have seen our president plenty of times. There’s a lot of places the president hasn’t been able to go, so I wouldn’t judge the relationship by that. I would judge it by what’s actually happening between our two countries.”
During Pritzker’s visit, the two nations finalized an agreement for a third $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee after Ukraine met U.S. and International Monetary Fund conditions for further credits. The financial support “is a reflection of our desire to see Ukraine to move towards an economy free from corruption, a democratic and independent, economically strong country,” Pritzker said.
She said one of Obama’s top priorities before leaving office on Jan. 20 is to make progress towards the Minsk peace agreements to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has claimed 10,000 lives. The Obama administration has led the Western push for sanctions to punish Russia for the war and the illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, but Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has suggested he may take a softer line against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Our president has been steadfast in saying that the Ukraine government needs to follow through on its Minsk obligations and is working hand-and-glove with the Ukrainian government on these issues as we speak,” Pritzker said. “There’s a lot of urgency around getting this done.”
