Policy Developments Will China Ultimately Retaliate? Coming on the heels of President Trump’s announcement last week confirming that his administration would implement its proposed 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of exports from China, Beijing said it would respond in kind with tariffs of a similar threshold on imports from the U.S., including agricultural products and seafood. Not to be outdone, President Trump said on Monday that he had instructed U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to come up with an additional list of items covering $200 billion worth of Chinese products. For its part, China noted that if the U.S. continues on this path and implements such practices, it would be left with no choice but to take str...
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
Monday, 25 May is a U.S. holiday, and both the markets and our office will be closed. Please note that the next issue of Ag Perspectives will be published on Tuesday, 26 May. The WPI staff wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounted to 11.6 million head, 102 percent of last year. Source: USDA, WPI Placements were up, but part of that is attributable to persistent drought c...