On 20 January, United States Congressman Markwayne Mullin, a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, sent a letter to Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia with concerns about the “deteriorating economic climate” for foreign direct investment (FDI), in particular for US energy companies in the country, reported agenda.ge. 

Mullin said that despite Georgia's progress since declaring its independence in 1991, “recent years have revealed a continuous negative trend in democratic and free market economic indicators” and that it has not gone unnoticed in the US. He also wrote that he believes that the FDI in Georgia was “on the decline” because US and European business interests “have been subjected to harassment and expropriation attack.” 

He further noted that “this deteriorating environment”  resulted in both the US House of Representatives and Senate passing  two consecutive annual appropriation bills for 2019 and 2020 “that have addressed concerns regarding the Georgian government's progressively antagonistic actions against the values, free-market principles and American business interests.”

“For the first time in Georgia's modern history, your country has been cast in a negative and cautionary light with respect to appropriations from the US government,” Mullin stated in the letter. Hoping that Georgia will continue to be “a strategic partner” of the US “for many years to come,” Mullin expressed his hopes that the Georgian government would “halt the aggressive actions against US companies and act quickly on the increasing warning signs that represent a threat to democracy and economic prosperity that the Georgian people deserve so much.”

The Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Archil Talakvadze responded to Mullin’s letter. “Top officials of the US State Department and our American partners say that Georgia has irreversible progress in terms of [the] development of democratic institutions and human rights and that Georgia is one of the most reliable partners of the US in the security field,” he said. 

He also added that the congressman’s letter mainly concerns the international dispute between Georgia and an American company Frontera, which drills for oil and gas in Eastern Georgia per a contract signed with the Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC) back in 1997. In 2018, Frontera complained that GOGC wanted to change provisions of Frontera’s license agreements and filed a request for arbitration.

Independent parliamentarian Beka Natsvlishvili [who previously was a member of the ruling Georgian Dream party] said that the congressman “allowed himself to protect the interests of the company [Frontera] which has violated the fundamental human rights of Georgian citizens”. “The employees of Frontera in Georgia have not received salaries in 11 months,” he added.

The members of the Georgian opposition parties argued that Mullin’s letter should serve as a warning signal to the government.  Leader of the Lelo for Georgia political party Mamuka Khazaradze called the letter “alarming,” saying that such statements by foreign partners “place Georgia-US cooperation under a question mark.” Leader of the European Georgia Sergi Kapanadze stated that such letters “must make the Georgian government wake up.”