Mexico Shrug U.S. trade officials meeting with their Mexican counterparts raised "grave concerns" over AMLO’s agricultural biotechnology policies and said modifications proposed thus far are inadequate. They committed to fully defend U.S. rights under the USMCA. The issue carries urgency because Mexico has stalled approvals of any new traits, which will eventually bring trade to a halt. Black Sea Grain Ukrainian grain exports were down a third last year but too much of what moved went to EU members and not poor starving nations. Brussels has considered using crisis funds to compensate adversely impacted farmers, and now may reconsider the special suspension of tariffs and quotas on Ukrainian production. By contrast, the Afric...
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...
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) enters its mandated six-year review on 1 July. The original intent of the review is outlined in Article 34.7, which obligates members to: Provide recommendations and decide on appropriate actions. Extend the USMCA for another 16 years and meet aga...
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.