U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said today that the U.S. is readying an announcement to exempt a number of food and agricultural products not produced in the United States from tariffs. The announcement comes after the President mentioned coffee prices as being high, saying that the U...
Writing about what the markets say will happen the day before a major USDA report is always a risky - but still useful - endeavor. This year, the recent U.S. government shutdown and U.S.-China trade war/trade deal intensify these dynamics of risk and worthiness. The shutdown, of course, by remo...
Ham-Handed U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the Administration will make “substantial announcements” about tariffs on coffee and other commodities not grown domestically “over the next couple of days.” The move is being made because food inflation has prov...
This is not a defense of tariffs or the tariff war, but a discussion about strategy and asymmetry. Since Mr. Trump announced his reciprocal tariff plan (trade war) in April, most news articles have focused on the adverse impacts to Americans. Consumers would pay the cost and speculation was rif...
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.