Geopolitics China's reaction to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's recent remarks on a potential Taiwan crisis has been disproportionately harsh and overtly hostile as it tried to undermine her domestic political support. Beijing’s ban on seafood imports from Japan based on the Fukushima nuclear disaster from nearly 14 years ago is overtly contrived. And the admonishment against Chinese tourism to Japan looks petty. Taiwan was discussed in a phone call this week between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping and the two leaders agreed that Mr. Trump will visit Beijing in April and he will host Xi for a state visit in 2026. Trump and Takaichi spoke afterwards but no word on whether she will reverse her decision to...
What You Need to Know Today: Crude oil prices dropped sharply with traffic flowing through the Strait of Hormuz. There were reports that Iran was behind an attack on a cargo ship near the coast of Oman, which would be a violation of the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran. Pr...
On Wednesday, the White House submitted a national security supplemental spending request for $87.6 billion. The majority of the request includes funding for the conflict in the Middle East, but there are agricultural provisions as well. The supplemental funding package includes more than $11 b...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.