World Perspectives

Free Trade Dreaming

The U.S. Congress often accomplishes more during lame duck sessions, the period after an election and before new members are sworn in, because those retiring from office converge with moderates to accomplish fundamental needs. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is retiring, and he has such a dream. He envisions a grand bargain that addresses the serious holes in U.S. trade policy. These include: Reauthorizing the Generalized System of Preferences (relatively non-partisan) Reauthorizing Trade Adjustment Assistance (a priority for Democrats) Establishing Trade Promotion Authority solely for a U.S. – United Kingdom FTA (relatively non-controversial) Establishing policies for better addressing the trade challenges posed by China (a bipart...

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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.

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