Partially Right, Partially Wrong Hiroshige Seko, Japan’s top political leader at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), correctly asserted today that his country’s automobile industry is a major contributor to the U.S. economy. Japanese companies have not only brought manufacturing jobs to the U.S., but they forced American manufacturers to greatly improve the products they sell at home and abroad. However, the minister misspoke on two fronts. He expressed empathy for Trump’s “feelings” of concern about the U.S. trade deficit, which is a symbolic proxy for imbalanced trading terms and not an issue itself. Second, he reportedly said that President Trump’s tariff policies “reflect a seri...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.