Steel Threats President Donald Trump is set to announce his decision tomorrow on Section 232 duties to be applied to imported steel and aluminum products. Today the EU disclosed the various American products that could face $2.8 billion worth of punitive tariffs if its steel is included in the Trump announcement. Since Section 232 is enshrined in U.S. rights under the WTO, Brussels technically needs to go through the Dispute Settlement Body process to have it overruled. Otherwise, Mr. Trump can simply declare his counterretaliation. The EU mentions these products in an effort to get the U.S. to unilaterally withdraw and thus avoid elongated litigation. It is somewhat effective since the White House is already hinting that it may exempt Can...
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.