Mutual Low Expectations The U.S. – India Trade Policy Forum will be held in Washington, DC on 8 November and nobody is expecting much to happen. There are economic structural differences and political commonalities that limit the relationship. India wants access to America’s large services sector, an end to 232 tariffs, renewed GSP access, plus its citizens want to bring the Social Security program benefits they paid to be returnable to India. The U.S. wants access for its goods, including agriculture, plus data and fairer competition policies. Last year, the U.S. gave access to Indian mangoes and pomegranates, India’s quid pro quo was removing barriers to U.S. cherries. Now Washington wants access for alfalfa, eth...
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.