Please Don’t Make Me Graduate Growing up is hard to do and least developed countries (LDC’s) are resisting losing their special trade benefits when their economies grow out of the LDC status. Presenting a litany of excuses in Geneva, they want LDC benefits extended even when they grow richer. Canada called it “backsliding” on WTO commitments but China, which insists it is still a developing country, curries favor with poorer countries by defending their beggar status. The WTO has morphed from being a trade liberalization organization to what many of its members now categorize as having development at its core. Jones Act Burden The EU is complaining about the U.S. Jones Act, which requires cargoes moved betwe...
What You Need to Know Today: There has already been a strong run of flash soybean sales announcements in recent weeks, but more than 1.4 MMT reported this morning is an exceptionally large single-day total with major implications for the market. If the sales to China and unknown destinations w...
On Friday, at 6:57 AM, President Donald Trump announced, via a social media post, a 90-day window during which up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef could be imported outside of tariff-rate quotas—a move aimed at bringing down costs for American consumers. This is the secon...
From WPI Consulting
Infrastructure investment due diligence
On behalf of a Canadian oilseed processer WPI's team provided market analysis, econometric modeling and financial due diligence in support of a $24 million-dollar investment in a Ukrainian crush plant. Consistent with WPI's findings, local production to supply the plant and the facility's output have expanded exponentially since the investment. WPI has conducted parallel work on behalf of U.S., South American and European clients, both private and public, in the agri-food space.