Who could have predicted the situation in which the U.S. ag sector now finds itself with Mexico and China?As the saying goes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” This apparently applies to the trade policy book for the Trump administration. What is emerging in its first few months is not what was anticipated based on the Trump campaign. Two key examples are Mexico and China. The two were major targets of Trump’s rhetoric and policy prescriptions during that period. He maligned Mexico for circumventing NAFTA and chastised China for being a currency manipulator, promising to renegotiate the former and crack down on the latter. Pundits, politicians, business leaders and other observers predicted trade wars with both countries would result.Howev...
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...
Tanker-tracking data shows a smaller recovery in oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz than previously thought. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, speaking by video to an international energy conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said that oil moving through the strait was back to 80 to 90 percent...
Key Takeaways: While soybean, palm, sunflower, and rapeseed oils dominate global vegetable oil markets, premium oils such as olive, avocado, coconut, and sesame command substantially higher prices due to their distinctive flavors, nutritional characteristics, and specialized culinary uses.. Ol...
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.