Crying Uncle With seeming impunity, U.S. President Donald Trump has helped Taiwan and called for an investigation into the coronavirus mistakes in China. In response, Beijing agreed to a lopsided trade deal in favor of the U.S. China had a $345 billion trade surplus with America last year. By contrast, Canberra suggested an investigation of the coronavirus and China responded with AD/CVD duties on Australian barley, has now advised against buying cotton from Down Under, and may be threatening a similar ban on coal from the now, not so “lucky” country. Australia had a surging trade surplus with China, which contributed 8.5 percent to Aussie GDP. Canberra is now checking its honor at the door and suggesting the two sides should w...
What You Need to Know Today: As was widely expected, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points to a target range of 3.75–4.00 percent, its first rate increase since 2023, as policymakers respond to persistent inflation pressures. The Fed also signaled that additi...
Key Takeaways: USDA data access is equal; the ability to use it is not. Larger operations can afford experts who turn public reports into business decisions. Analytical capacity is the true advantage. Forecasts matter only when converted into profit, purchasing, and risk-management decisions...
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.