Using trade as a bullying tool did not start and end with Donald Trump. Most recently, Russia’s Vladimir Putin limited food exports to so-called “friendly” countries. Starting in 2020 when Australia called for an investigation into COVID’s origin, Beijing began an effort to intimidate Canberra’s foreign policy via the use of trade barriers. Tariffs and trade restrictions were imposed on Australia’s barley, wine, beef, cotton, and iron ore. However, Australia’s exports of the restricted products merely dispersed to other markets, and overall exports to China continued to grow. Relations between China and the U.S. have been equally strained, but more a clash of equals. China is still the...
What You Need to Know Today: The U.S. and Iran agreed to a peace deal on Monday with the deal expected to be signed Friday in Switzerland. The memorandum signed is explicit that Iran will allow 60 days of toll-free transit for all traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and President Trump annou...
The U.S. and Iran announced a framework peace deal. Crude oil futures dropped to $83.08, the lowest since early March. The breakthrough comes as President Trump said that if Iran failed to reach a deal, he would order renewed military attacks. An LNG tanker chartered by India’s Petronet c...
Key Takeaways: Vertical farming offers year-round production, reduced water use, and the ability to grow fresh produce closer to consumers. High electricity consumption for lighting and climate control has proven to be the industry's biggest obstacle to profitability. Large upfront investments...
Developer's Note: Last year, users pointed out differences between the 5-year averages reported in this app and what USDA estimates in its weekly report. The difference exists because WPI calculates average based on the last 5 years of observations for the current week. In cases where obs...
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.