World Perspectives

Geopolitics and Trade; Labor’s Distortions

Geopolitics and Trade Post WWII trade policy by Washington was largely driven by Cold War tactics. Offer countries easier access to the big American consumer market in exchange for supporting the West against the Soviet Union. There was a brief 20-year period after the fall of the USSR in which geopolitics and economics became less entangled but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s hysteric reaction to a U.S. Congresswoman going to Taiwan has changed the calculus. Now the Biden White House has put possible tariff cuts on Chinese goods on hold, and it has imposed ample sanctions on Russia. Labor’s Distortions USTR Katherine Tai made clear in her presentation this week to the United Steelworkers’ union that orga...

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From WPI Consulting

Illuminating the value of technical research

On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

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