PRC Pattern Against U.S. A final trade agreement between the U.S. and China remains elusive, with Beijing now insisting on more extensive tariff elimination by Washington. As if to highlight the power of its position, China announced that it will buy $100 million worth of European pork in 2020 from Danish Crown, and it lifted the ban on imports of Canadian pork and beef. Meanwhile, President Xi Jinping did not even reference the U.S. when speaking this week at the China International Import Expo about his country’s interest in negotiating more trade deals. Separately, analysis on the recent completion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) appears mixed: • India’s withdrawal from RCEP means it won&rsqu...
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
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.