UK Secretary of Business and Trade Kemi Badenoch is correct when she says there is a “zero” chance of a trade deal with the U.S. She pins blame on Joe Biden’s marriage to labor unions, which oppose just about any kind of trade liberalization. Her analysis arrives amid rumors that her boss, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and U.S. President Biden are looking to form a “foundational” bilateral trade agreement because both face re-election in 2024. Ms. Badenoch goes on to correctly characterize FTA’s “as a tool” and that they are “not the answer to everything.” Left out of her analysis is the likely rejection by her government of making any significant concessions to the U.S. on agricul...
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.
The Trump Administration is planning a suspension of tariff rate quotas (TRQs) on beef from all exporters for 200 days as a means to address high beef prices in the U.S. U.S. cattle and beef prices have increased based on exceptionally strong consumer demand, the smallest U.S. cattle herd in 75...