World Perspectives

Gutsy USTR; Inflation Beats Exports; Ruble Hell

Gutsy USTR  USTR Katherine Tai is in an interagency battle over whether to lift tariffs on China to try and stem inflation, and she’s not backing down in her opposition to such a move. Yesterday she told Congress that, “The China tariffs are, in my view, a significant piece of leverage, and a trade negotiator never walks away from leverage.” Making such a strong statement on an issue undergoing internal Administration debate puts her in a very public fight against Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who favors the cuts.  Somebody will lose and historically, presidents have sided with the troika (State, Treasury, or Defense). She then even stepped directly onto the figurative turf of Treasury by telling the Committ...

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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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