Japan is cool toward a bilateral free trade agreement with the U.S. after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expended his political capital last year on the TPP. Nevertheless, USTR Lighthizer expressed the view that given its large bilateral trade surplus, Tokyo should make unilateral trade concessions to the U.S. Trust but Verify A signature quote attributed to President Ronald Reagan related to Russian compliance with arms agreements is notably a Russian proverb in origin. Apparently, USDA and DG-Agri do not think in the same cold terms as nuclear arms negotiators. Both sign so-called equivalence agreements and then trust other parties to comply. Now both have rushed to block Brazilian beef imports due to safety concerns.This follows the scandal...
What You Need to Know Today: China’s state-run COFCO, in statements on Tuesday, implied that U.S. corn exports were currently uneconomical but hinted that the Middle Kingdom would import 3.5 MMT of the feed grain this year, with 1 MMT likely sourced from the U.S. Another drone attack has...
Tanker-tracking data shows a smaller recovery in oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz than previously thought. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, speaking by video to an international energy conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said that oil moving through the strait was back to 80 to 90 percent...
Key Takeaways: While soybean, palm, sunflower, and rapeseed oils dominate global vegetable oil markets, premium oils such as olive, avocado, coconut, and sesame command substantially higher prices due to their distinctive flavors, nutritional characteristics, and specialized culinary uses.. Ol...
From WPI Consulting
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.