¡Aguas! USMCA The Mexicans are becoming frustrated with the varying demands from Washington for changes to the USMCA before Congressional Democrats will move the agreement forward. Some are aggressive, such as American inspections of Mexican plants and rejecting products at the border. Some solutions are creative, such as expedited dispute settlement efforts on labor issues, and inspections only by dispute settlement panelists. One report indicates an entirely new demand has surfaced. The Mexicans might just say ¡Aguas!, or watch out. USMCA modernizes NAFTA but overall the agreement was forced by President Trump when he threatened to pull out of NAFTA, and it is filled with concessions to the Americans. At some point, Mexico sh...
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
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.