CPTPP Appeal China’s aggressive effort to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) may be having an unintended effect – causing the U.S. to reconsider its previous rejection of such an agreement. If China were to join, which seems unlikely but not impossible, then the U.S. would be locked out of Asia. The situation is like how Congressional Democrats’ years-long complaints about NAFTA evaporated when President Trump threatened to withdraw from the agreement. His position either exposed the fraudulence of NAFTA’s opposition, or forced an understanding that you don’t know what you’ve got until it is gone. Either way, the threat enabled the negotiation of the US...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.