China, Japan and Canada Trade Developments – or Not During an interview at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event in New York this week, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer said that since China joined the WTO 17 years ago, the bilateral trade relationsip has worked out for that country but not the U.S. Lighthizer was asked about the breakthrough in new beef access last year and said: That's a great example. So we got beef back into the market – if you believe the headlines from a year ago as a result of the 100-day plan. Now, what actually did we get back in? The last time I checked it was $64 million worth of beef in the course of a year. And how much beef is actually eligible? Less than 3 percent. And then you say...
Markets are caught between reasons to keep selling and reasons to take another look. Fund liquidation and renewed peace talks are pressuring grains, while fresh export business and some diesel relief offer encouragement. Corn recovered nearly 10 cents from its low to finish higher, while soybea...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
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.