Regardless of the outcome of the U.S. election, policymaking in 2025 and beyond will play out in an environment shaped by the federal budget deficit and national debt. The current state of fiscal policy has been exacerbated by federal spending related to the COVID recovery response. As it stands, under the projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the federal budget deficit in 2024 will come in at $1.9 trillion, which is 7 percent of GDP. That compares to the 3.7 percent GDP deficits have averaged over the past 50 years. Federal debt as measured against GDP is 99 percent this year. In short, the U.S. government owes nearly as much money to creditors as there is money in the entire U.S. economy. Moreover, debt is f...
There was heavy volume exiting soybeans, which dragged down the broader market today. The lack of a specific Chinese buying commitment for soybeans undermined speculators who had placed bets on state-directed trade. But even the Chinese do not totally ignore market fundamentals. They may still...
On Tuesday, 12 May, WPI reported on an Executive Order being prepared by the Trump Administration to suspend tariff rate quotas (TRQs) on beef from all exporters for 200 days as a means of addressing high beef prices in the United States. After considerable pushback from cattle producer groups,...
WPI has officially launched Transportation Perspectives as a standalone weekly report separate from our Ag Perspectives articles and analysis. Current Ag Perspectives subscribers will have gratis access to the report through 16 April 2026. Please email us or subscribe online after this date to...
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.