Understanding U.S. Trade Policy Most leaders of international organizations refrain from publicly criticizing any member of their group. However, World Trade Organization Director-General Robert Azevêdo was particularly understanding of the U.S. trade policy situation this week. Despite being provoked to present a harsher view, he told the BBC that President Donald Trump’s global trade actions have been tempered by awareness of their risks. He wouldn’t even call the U.S. actions “unilateral.” Most headlines have warned of a trade war and harkened back to the adverse outcome of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. More analysis is being written that acknowledges Mr. Trump’s talk is brash while his administration...
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.