Tai’s Easy Day Katherine Tai’s nomination hearing before the Senate Finance Committee today was all polite ceremony. Her thoughtful and respectful approach easily winning an eventual lopsided confirmation vote. She was not asked about trade deficits or pressed into any corners. Committee members concurrently praised her predecessor, Robert Lighthizer, while criticizing Trump trade policy. Yet, Trump trade policy continues with lots of tariffs and no TPP. The one common denominator was the need to be aggressive on China. Europhiles on the Potomac Washington’s recovery from Trump is moving faster than its recovery from COVID. There are nearly 70 different think tanks in the city and more than a few have been holding...
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
Monday, 25 May is a U.S. holiday, and both the markets and our office will be closed. Please note that the next issue of Ag Perspectives will be published on Tuesday, 26 May. The WPI staff wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounted to 11.6 million head, 102 percent of last year. Source: USDA, WPI Placements were up, but part of that is attributable to persistent drought c...
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.