Un-Whole of Government President Trump’s memorandum last week announcing his America First Trade Policy (AFTP) was issued to five federal departments, two of which are only tangentially involved in trade policy. It skipped over the federal department overseeing more than six percent of U.S. international trade and whose constituency is the most stalwart supporter of the President. His AFTP mentions helping farmers and ranchers three separate times but doesn’t once mention his government’s primary overseer of agricultural trade policy. As in his first term, he has elevated the Department of Commerce to a leadership position that ignores the intent of the Trade Act of 1974 in giving USTR primacy. This may or may not be...
Inflation is back in the driver’s seat, and agriculture is getting pulled in two directions. A stronger dollar is pressuring grains despite fresh Chinese buying, while renewed Middle East attacks lift crude oil. Higher energy prices can support commodities, but they also raise expenses an...
Key Takeaways: The EPA has proposed reallocating 770 million RINs associated with Small Refinery Exemptions (SREs), either splitting the volume equally between 2026 and 2027 or assigning the full amount to 2027. The agency granted exemptions covering 1.76 billion RINs for 2025, substantially e...
What You Need to Know Today: China’s state-run COFCO, in statements on Tuesday, implied that U.S. corn exports were currently uneconomical but hinted that the Middle Kingdom would import 3.5 MMT of the feed grain this year, with 1 MMT likely sourced from the U.S. Another drone attack has...
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.