The Trump Administration started a more robust process of conditioning the offer of nonreciprocal import tariff relief to developing countries under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). Now the incoming Biden Administration says it will carefully way trade concessions based on labor practices, environmental protection, and other goals. There is bipartisan support in Congress for stronger conditionality. However, there may be less impact on food and agriculture. First, most reduced tariffs under GSP benefit industrial goods, particularly inputs used by U.S. manufacturers. Second, the U.S. only imports food from some select developing countries. For example, just 2 percent of food imports originate from Sub-Saharan Africa. Of the 10...
What You Need to Know Today: President Trump claimed the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was over, as both sides accused one another of violating the terms of the agreement. Commercial vessels are increasingly steering clear of the Strait of Hormuz as security risks escalate following Iran...
Key Takeaways: The CME Group is launching new 90 percent Lean Beef and 50 percent Lean Beef futures and options contracts in July. There are five key factors that must be present in physical markets and futures contract specifications for futures contracts to become successful. The two l...
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.