World Perspectives

Why Trump Wants Trade War; Beggar Farm Policy; Heavy Pruning for Finance

Why Trump Wants Trade War The U.S. media is emphasizing the impending harm from steel and aluminum tariffs to be imposed by President Donald Trump. These include Europe’s threat to retaliate with tariffs on Kentucky bourbon, Wisconsin motorcycles and Hollywood movies. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven correctly warned in Washington today, “Increased tariffs will hurt us all in the long run….” However, trade wars are not one and done. Retaliation by Europe, for example, would lead to counterretaliation by the U.S. and then counter-counterretaliation, etc. This is the slippery slope hoped for by President Trump since he believes that scenario works to the favor of a large trade deficit nation like the U.S. Bo...

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From WPI Consulting

Illuminating the value of technical research

On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

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