Abstract: The article reveals the issues of the development of relations between the Russian Empire and the United States in the mid-19th century. The authors consider the international-legal situation of that period. The authors carry out the analysis of the Far Eastern policy of the Russian Empire in the post-reform period. The authors note that Russian-American relations in the late 19th century were characterized with the strengthening of friendly relations and establishment of business and trade contacts. Moreover, the US also had their interests in the Far East and could protect them effectively only with the help of the Russian state. The authors of the research apply the general methods of cognition: the materialist and dialectical methods and the method of scientific abstraction which gave the opportunity to study Russian-American relations in their development, to reveal the features of the Far Eastern policy of the Russian Empire of the post-reform period. The general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, deduction and induction and the system-structural method helped in the analysis of Russia-United States relations of the mid-19th century and the formulation of conclusions about their impact on the world politics. Thus, the mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and the US, established in the late 17th – the early 19th century, continued in the late 19th century.