We are about to enter the 15th month of the tariff war between the U.S. and China, and to put it bluntly, a resolution seems further off today than it did when the tariff hostilities began. We daresay that few people in the Trump administration or among high level Chinese officials believed that the dispute would last this long when the first tit-for-tat tariffs were imposed in July 2018. During the 2016 election campaign President Trump often cited China as an example of a country whose bilateral trade took great advantage of the U.S., and he promised if elected to force a change in U.S. trade relations with China including reducing or eliminating China’s huge trade imbalance. There was plenty to complain about in the way Chi...
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.
What You Need to Know Today: After a period of limited activity, USDA reported a sizeable 613 KMT in soybean export sales, including 330 KMT to China and 283 KMT to unknown destinations, potentially also China. The purchases represent a meaningful pickup in demand and bring China closer to ful...
Key Takeaways: Dry bulk markets remain mixed with Capesize vessels seeing continued pressure from weaker demand while fixtures and rate strength gradually increases towards the smaller vessel classes. Tanker markets are pulling back from their recent highs as tonnage moves out of the Mid...
The Trump import plan for 300,000 MT of beef supplies used for ground beef, i.e., lean trim, from September through November has, according to Secretary Brooke Rollins, brought some relief to beef prices. The Executive Order states that the Secretary of Agriculture will analyze and review the m...