Vietnam Deal As the 9 July deadline approaches, a second trade deal was announced by President Trump. He says the U.S. will apply a 20 percent tariff on imports from Vietnam (versus 46 percent reciprocal), and 40 percent if the product was transshipped. The duty could vary based on domestic content. Meanwhile, U.S. goods will face no tariff. It is essentially a preferential access agreement. Vietnam says it will buy airplanes, energy and agricultural products from the U.S. to reduce the trade imbalance, which is the third highest after China and Mexico. U.S. requests for improved access for American agriculture is creating domestic political riffs. This includes South Korea on beef, Japan on rice, and India on dairy. President Trump charact...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
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.