Letter Grade B Donald Trump claims to be the world’s greatest negotiator but he only gets a B grade for his trade deal with Japan. Under pressure to get an agreement because U.S. farmers were being hurt in the Japanese market by his earlier withdrawal from TPP, he gave Japan more concessions on industrial goods than was perhaps expected. Worse, powerful Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) concludes that U.S. farmers only obtained 90 percent of what they would have gotten had the TPP deal been kept. Look out for what is gotten in a trade deal with China if the President is under pressure during re-election due to a tepid economy. Wrong Tax Goal The Bulgarian government is contemplating waiving the value added t...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.