This afternoon President Trump and EU Ambassador Stavros Lambrinidis announced an agreement regarding the EU’s Hilton quota, commonly referred to as the “high quality beef” (HQB) quota. The deal is close to the terms agreed to in principle back in March. The U.S. will get 35,000 MT of the annual 45,000 ton hormone-free beef quota. The original tentative deal was to be phased in over five years, but the agreement signed today would phase in the 35,000 MT duty-free access over seven years. It starts with a tariff rate quota (TRQ) of 18,500 MT in the first year, which will be next year after the EU Parliament approves the agreement this fall. Current average shipments are about 13,000 MT. The dispute began some 20 years ago...
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.
Energy: Risk Over Rules Fighting between the United States and Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz escalated overnight. Tehran accused U.S. forces of striking a residential area after U.S. Central Command said its second round of attacks in three days targeted Iranian radar systems and mi...
Key Takeaways: Paraguay typically ranks among the world’s largest soybean exporters, with roughly two-thirds of its production destined for export markets, although most shipments remain within South America. As a landlocked country, Paraguay relies heavily on the Paraguay-Paraná...