Among the documents in the so-called Paradise Papers was the revelation that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has retained investments in a shipping firm with ties to questionable Russian interests, including the son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ross, according to the documents, retains a stake in Navigator Holdings, a shipping firm that does significant business with the Russian energy company Sibur, reportedly the firm’s second-largest client. Major Sibur shareholders have faced sanctions by the U.S., including Gennady Timchenko, a Russian billionaire who is barred from entering the country, and Leonid Mikhelson, whose company Novatek was placed on the sanctions list in 2014.
Putin’s son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov, also holds a stake in the firm.
Ross’ financial interest in Navigator is held via companies in the Cayman Islands, which are linked to two entities that together control roughly one-third of the shipping firm. Those entities were listed on his financial disclosure, but not among the assets he said he would retain, according to NBC News.
Ross maintained in a comment to the BBC “there’s nothing whatsoever improper about Navigator having a relationship with Sibur.”
“If our government decided to sanction them, that would be a different story,” the secretary added. That’s hard to dispute.
While Ross does not appear as of now to have clearly violated any rules, it’s certainly fair to wonder whether he took deliberate steps to avoid disclosing his interests in Navigator, though he also denied having misled Congress during his confirmation hearing in his comments to the BBC this week. Nevertheless, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is calling for an investigation, accusing the secretary of “conceal[ing]” the companies in question.
This is somewhat convoluted, but it’s relevant to wonder whether our commerce secretary should be making money off a Russian company thats second-largest client is owned partially by people whose interests conflict with the United States.
For figures like Ross, White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — all of whom are referenced in the Paradise Papers — decades spent amassing significant wealth in the private sector make the transition to government work enormously difficult.
Ross’ entanglement with these Russian interests provides an opportunity to reflect back on his larger history in the private sector. On that subject, the Washington Examiner’s Timothy P. Carney published a detailed analysis back in January. Now is a good time to revisit it.
“Wilbur Ross’s success in business is, to all appearances, mostly due to risk-taking and smarts. His belief in Chinese-style industrial policy is probably honestly held,” Carney wrote. “But the fact that central planning has enriched Ross personally tells us something: Big government tends to enrich the wealthy and well-connected, at the expense of everyone else.”
I assume Ross will weather these reports, despite the blood thirst of some congressional Democrats. But in his record, and those of others highlighted in the Paradise Papers, the public are reminded of how distant the world inhabited by elite power brokers is from their own.
