U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer this week turned his sights on Europe where he declared, “We have a very unbalanced relationship…”. In addition to punitive tariffs already imposed, the Trump Administration is looking at additional punishment for the EU’s Airbus subsidies, plus retaliating for France’s digital tax. Meanwhile, EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan is adding more aggressive trade policy tools to his repertoire. If a meeting next month between these two officials is as cold as expected, the transatlantic trade environment is about to get uglier. Partisan economist Paul Krugman belittled the Trump Administration’s recent accomplishments with China but Lighthizer retorts th...
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.