Transatlantic Dynamic; Doubling Down
Transatlantic DynamicThose in U.S. agricultural trade policy agree with Donald Trump that the EU treats America badly. The large U.S. agricultural trade deficit with the EU has been growing at a compound annual growth rate of over 6 percent. Since WWII, the U.S. has subsidized Europe’s se...
Tear it Up II; Splitting GM Wheat; DOFE
Tear it Up IICanada’s finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, resigned and President-elect Donald Trump is being blamed. That is an over-simplification and she appears to have run away from a fight. But her resignation raises the question of how Canada and Mexico will handle Mr. Trump. Both countr...
Lame Duck Docket: Appropriations, Farm Bill and Ag Related National Defense Authorization Provisions
As of today, Congress has four days until government funding expires, and 15 days to pass a farm bill extension before (31 December) permanent law goes into effect, which could have negative impacts on commodity markets. Lawmakers are still working to finalize a stopgap funding bill that w...
Trump’s War on American Agriculture
American agriculture is already facing a less affluent future. Commodity prices have softened, and South America now dominates the global export market. The U.S. share of global agricultural trade has fallen by two-thirds. Major importers have typically chafed under their dependence upon foreig...
Argentina’s Economy One Year after Milei
A look at Argentina’s fiscal and economic policy is instructive on two levels. First, understanding its impact for Argentina’s position in ag commodity trade, and second as a policy analog. President-elect Trump will create the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which will be part o...
Food Fight Ahead; UPF Boogeyman
Food Fight AheadThere are two committee confirmation hearings that aggies will be watching intently early next year: the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) on the nomination of RFK, Jr.; and the Senate Agriculture Committee on the nomination of Brooke Rollins. Th...
Hunger Games; Power of Deregulation
Hunger GamesDonald Trump’s Cabinet nominees are unconventional, far more so than in his first term as president. It could result in a shakeup of staid and static policy prescriptions, or it could amount to nothing more than a bunch of four-year-olds attempting to play soccer. The DNI nominee qu...
New Leadership for Congressional Energy Committees
With the retirement from Congress of House Energy and Commerce (HEC) Committee chair Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA), the gavel was up for grabs in what is arguably the most powerful committee in the House. The third and fourth ranking Republicans, Representatives Bob Latta of Ohio and Brett Guthr...
Regulation Ruse; FTA’s Needed; Big is Bad
Regulation RuseFarmers in Europe oppose the recently completed free trade agreement with Mercosur, and have long prevented a transatlantic agreement with the U.S. They argue that their competitors in the Americas produce under less stringent environmental and labor standards. That may be true b...
EU’s Approach to Trump; Ignoring FTA’s; Laying the Trap
EU’s Approach to TrumpAs Europe’s economy founders under a tax and regulate approach, and its security becomes increasingly threatened by appeasement and inadequate defense spending, its leaders talk ready to get tough with Donald Trump. Some suggest preempting Trump tariffs by negotiating an e...
Long Slow Process for 45Z Still Ongoing
Part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act was section 45Z, the Clean Fuels Production Credit. It is in effect from 1 January 2025 through 31 December 2027. At the time, this provision was hailed as a potential game changer for biofuels and feedstock production. The problem is guidance for qualif...
EU-Mercosur Fallout; Get Your Own; WTO Ignored
EU-Mercosur FalloutThe EU and Mercosur reached agreement on a quarter century effort to have a free trade agreement. Tariffs will be removed on over 90 percent of two-way trade. The agreement has further procedural hurdles to overcome. France leads an effort to construct a blocking minority of...
Squaring Budget and Taxes; Trade War; F&V Self-Destruction
Squaring Budget and TaxesU.S. agricultural spending could get squeezed between the incoming Trump Administration’s desire to extend tax cuts, which creates a $4 trillion budget hole, and reducing the size of government. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk an...
Reorganizing in Congress – Potential Moves Among Aggies
Congress will return to Washington this week to kick off the post-election lame duck session of Congress. The docket is busy with only 12 joint legislative days left and government funding set to expire on 20 December. And the Farm Bill is set to expire on 31 December unless an extension can be...
Trade Abusers; Working Class Appeals; Healthy Elites
Trade AbusersThe West blames China for over-production but the global narrative is that China has embraced global trade and it is the U.S. that has become isolationist. This framing is disputed by Stewart Paterson at the Singapore-based Hinrich Foundation. He notes that trade flows show the opp...
Trump Tariffs Round Two – Canada and Mexico
In various social media posts, President-elect Trump last week announced his plans to implement a 25 percent tariff on all goods from Canada and Mexico, stating “… as one of my first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25 percent tariff on all pro...
Food versus Populism; Food in Perspective; Beauty of the Algorithm; Tariffs as Panacea
Food versus PopulismPresident-elect Donald Trump’s selection of RFK, Jr. to oversee a food system that he wants to remake without chemicals and ultra-processing, or mega farms, or seed oils, is going to be both fun and excruciating to watch. The sheer mass of the food-sector battleship should b...
USTR Nominee; Changing Eating Habits
USTR NomineeTariffs are President-Elect Trumps most repeated policy focus but his selection of the next U.S. Trade Representative came nearly last. At least Jamieson Greer is a somewhat known quantity. World Trade Online says, “Stakeholders see what they want to see in Greer as USTR.” Having se...
Channeling Hamilton; Gastronationalism Gone Awry; Science Reverts to Nonpartisan; Black Friday Deals
Channeling HamiltonAlexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, encouraged the Tariff Act of 1789, the Tariff Act of 1790, and the Tariff Act of 1792. He used tariffs to fund the government and protect domestic industries from British exports. President-elect Trump has pledged...
Brooke Rollins: New Ag Secretary Pick
During the Presidential campaign, one topic on which Donad Trump was introspective was on his staff and cabinet appointments. He mentioned more than once on the campaign trail that getting the “right people” in jobs was one area in which he would focus the second time around. Typically Trump me...
Most Googled; Maladministration; Tough Love
Most GoogledOn Saturday, 23 November, the most Googled thing for those in U.S. agriculture policy circles was Brooke Rollins. Her name had not been amongst the 15 or so possible names mentioned in media reports to head USDA. A prominent name added to the list late last week was former U.S...
China-Brazil Bilateral at the G20 Summit: New Deals to Be Announced
The G20 meets in Rio de Janeiro this week, and Presidents Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva of Brazil and Xi Jinping of China have a bilateral side meeting on their respective calendars. The agenda is focused on promoting development strategies between China and Brazil.Brazil’s Ag Minister Carlos Fav...
Farm Bill Deficiencies; Transatlantic Tensions; GMO Correction
Farm Bill DeficienciesU.S. Senate Democrats have finally laid down their marker in a bicameral negotiation over a farm bill renewal. In it, Democrats conceded to a House Republican initiative to double spending on export promotion programs. However, they did not accept the Republican position t...
Agriculture Committees in the 119th Congress
With the Republicans maintaining control of the House, Representative G.T. Thompson (R-PA) will retain the gavel as committee chairman, unless he is nominated for Secretary of Agriculture by President-elect Trump. Thompson’s name has been mentioned more frequently as of late as a potential nomi...
RFK, Jr. Equals Opportunity; Quarter Century of GMO’s
RFK, Jr. Equals OpportunityRobert F. Kennedy, Jr. wants to eliminate processed foods, artificial colorings, chemicals, and other broadly named boogeymen. He and his ilk are social media trolls that disparage the regulated and regulators alike, fabricating conspiracy theories about Big Food want...
McSustainability Through Feed Efficiency
McDonalds has entered the sustainability space by partnering with Syngenta and paying cattle producers to use Syngenta’s Enogen Trait corn to improve feed efficiency. Enogen corn contains an enzyme, alpha amylase. This enzyme has been added during the ethanol production process to induce starch...
EU Studies Trading Houses
As part of its witch hunt for unfair market practices, the EU Parliament’s AGRI Committee requested a study of the major agricultural commodity trading companies and their impacts. The study may inform populists in the U.S. that also see consolidated industries as inherently harmful, but...
Trump’s Tariff Plan; Whither Europe; RTO Beats WFH
Trump’s Tariff PlanFew things attract more speculation than how President-Elect Donald Trump will model his plan to increase tariffs on imports. Some economists have taken his most exaggerated claims and predict they will cause slower economic growth and higher inflation. At least one advisor s...
Political Landscape Taking Shape
After the 2024 elections, the Republicans look to have taken control of Congress, along with a Trump victory, providing a Republican triple sweep. The Senate GOP majority is 53 to 47; and the House GOP majority is still TBD. However, as of today, the Republicans have secured 215 seats, and Demo...
Deep Bench to Fight RFK; China Market Risk; Thankless Job
Deep Bench to Fight RFKBeing the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture is usually a pretty good job. It involves doling out billions of dollars, the constituency is dominated by courteous country people, and controversies tend to be minor. The person serving the longest in any Cabinet position was Jame...
Senate Committee Changes and Ethanol Legislation
As WPI noted a week ago on 4 November, As a general rule, a Republican agenda is likely to be friendlier to liquid fuels, especially petroleum fuels, whereas a Democrat agenda is more likely to include a role for electric vehicles, and a renewable fuels policy that will focus on reducing c...
Who Might Be the Next Ag Secretary?
As most Presidents-elect do, former President and President-elect Donald Trump has named his new White House Chief of Staff as his first appointment. It is Susi S. Wiles. Wiles was the co-manager of Trump’s 2024 campaign, and also was a key strategist focused on Florida in his 2016 and 2020 cam...
Transatlantic Trade War; Traders Beat Pollsters; Transatlantic Lesson
Transatlantic Trade WarU.S. equity markets rose yesterday on news of Donald Trump’s victory, while shares in Europe fell. The EU is America’s biggest trading partner and Trump promises tariffs. EU officials are strategizing on how to deal with a Trump presidency, with some urging cooperation, a...
The Day After
The political establishment in Washington is stunned following yesterday's rout by Donald Trump and the Republicans. The Democrats’ arch nemesis not only survived everything they threw at him, but he also took an increasing share of the minority voting block that they claimed as their own. It w...
Tax Policy Outlook Post Election
After the votes are fully counted, as a new Administration forms, and Congress organizes, WPI will take a deeper look into the policy implications of today’s election. From today’s point of view, unless this election is an unexpected blowout (countering polling data that shows it neck and neck...
EU Confirmation Hearings; Japanese Independence; Lemonades out of Lemons; Border War
EU Confirmation HearingsIn a few months, it will be the turn of either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris’s cabinet nominees to seek confirmation by the legislature but this week it is Europe’s Commission designates confronting the hurdle of the European Parliament (EP). Maroš Šefčovič, Commissioner...
Renewable Fuel Policy Outlook in 2025
Tomorrow is election day; the make-up of Congress and who is in the White House is expected to have an impact on renewable fuel policy in 2025. As a general rule, a Republican agenda is likely to be friendlier to liquid fuels, especially petroleum fuels, whereas a Democrat agenda is more likely...
Transatlantic Inverse; Farm Bill Chances
Transatlantic InverseDepending on tomorrow’s election outcome, American businesses will either be saddled with more taxes, regulations, and attacks on consolidation, or be hit with higher import tariffs and maybe the goofy ideas of people like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. By contrast, Europe has now...
State Directed Meat; Living Space
State Directed MeatUSDA has been issuing loans and grants to startup livestock businesses with the goal of diversifying the industry, providing producers with more options, and lowering the price of meat. Now Pure Prairie Poultry of Minnesota, a beneficiary of $38.7 million in loan guarantees a...
Misdirected Fire; Over-Capacity
Misdirected FireThe Kamala Harris campaign is frustrated that the economy is hot, inflation has dissipated to just 2.4 percent, and yet voters are not feeling it. Politicians learned long ago to never tell the voters they are wrong and have misperceptions. Consequently, she has been acknowledgi...
Interest Rate Outlook
The Fed meets next week, the day after the election. It looks likely there will be a rate cut again for the second time in as many meetings. The federal funds futures market is pricing in a 95.4 percent probability of a cut. At the September meeting, Fed members signaled another 50 basis point...
Post-Election Transatlantic
The EU’s dependency on the U.S. for both defense and economic well-being has focused discussions in Brussels on what the relationship will look like should Donald Trump win on 5 November. The Biden Administration initiated a Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in 2021 with designs to coordinate...
Newsom for President; Fake Meat Lacks Standing
Newsome for PresidentUntil this past Friday, U.S. ethanol producers feared that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) might make an effort to limit the marketing of their products in the Golden State. Now they are singing in the streets as California Governor Gavin Newsom instructed CARB to...
RFK Jr Role in a Potential Trump Admin Worrying Aggies
With the election one week from tomorrow, many aggies are turning their attention to the probable role of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a Trump Administration should Trump win the election. Over the last week, this is literally the biggest topic of conversation among this analyst’s contacts and sour...
BRICS Grain Exchange; Transatlantic Gaslighting
BRICS Grain ExchangeVladmir Putin used his BRICS conference in Kazan, Russia to formally suggest the creation of a grain exchange by the bloc of countries. He said such an exchange could later be expanded to other products and that it would " contribute to the formation of fair and predictable...
Inflation Disconnect; Economic Opinions
Inflation DisconnectEconomists including those at the Federal Reserve use so-called core inflation when assessing the level of rising prices in the economy. Core inflation excludes food and energy prices since they are considered more volatile, and less directly impacted by the Fed’s monetary p...
U.S. Dietary Guidelines: Booze and Junk Food
Every five years, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, issued by USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are updated. The new guidelines will be issued next year for 2025-2030. This guidance provides advice on what to eat and drink to meet nutrient needs, promote health, and...
Policy Shortz
U.S. – EU Reset: The transatlantic relationship must be reset after the upcoming election. Brussels produced a state-by-state report on Europe’s trade and investment engagement to help set the environment. U.S. technology firms argue it is ludicrous for Europe to think it can be competitive in...
Biggest Monopoly; Aggies Challenge Trump; Food Safety Risks and Perceptions
Biggest MonopolyReflecting voter concerns about food inflation, both Harris and Trump are attacking the food system and implying concerns about monopoly power. But no industry is as monopolistic as politics where consumer choice is often limited to just two parties. Voters are near evenly split...
State Control of Markets – Russia; State Control of Markets – U.S
State Control of MarketsRussia’s agriculture ministry recently “suggested” that grain exporters not sell wheat internationally below the minimum price of $250/MT FOB. The minimum price approach is less clumsy than export quotas but is a harder stop than Moscow’ use of export taxes to try and ma...
Asymmetric on Tariffs
Most economists are clear in describing tariffs as a border tax. Their impacts include increasing costs on consumers and reducing trade, and thus self-harming a nation’s economic well-being. Yet, it is difficult to identify a nation that doesn’t use tariffs, and most utilize them more than the...
Farm Subsidies on the March
Subsidies can increase output and there are many ways to subsidize an industry, but that doesn’t mean that countries should do it. Cost of Production: The EU badly wants to become self-sufficient in plant protein. More than four decades ago Europe lost a dispute settlement cas...
Politics: Will 2024 Election Yield an Unprecedented Triple Flip?
The 2024 election is three weeks from tomorrow. This cycle has been unusual. The campaign started as a Biden versus Trump rematch of the 2020 campaign, the first such rematch since 1956 (only the seventh time in history and only the second time since 1900). However, President Biden stepped down...
Policy Potpourri
Good Many Organisms: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded this week to scientists at Google DeepMind using AI to predict the structure of proteins and inventing new ones. Capitaslizing on the opportunities, Ginkgo Bioworks announced that it would make available to researchers its API that u...
War on Food Companies; Holding Back the Future
War on Food Companies Market skeptics like U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) have stepped up their attack on food companies by accusing them of price gouging by “squeezing profits out of consumers” through shrinkflation and avoiding federal taxes. They charge that comp...
USDA Announces Cattle Price Discovery Rule
Today, the Biden Administration issued an Advanced Notice of Public Rulemaking (ANPR) on Price Discovery and Transparency in Markets for Fed Cattle. This is the fifth livestock and poultry market regulation put forth under the Packers and Stockyards Act (P&SA) and under the Biden Executive...
Allowing Private Contributions to Conservation Programs to Create Public Assets
USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) closed the comment period for the implementing rules for the Sponsoring USDA Sustainability Targets in Agriculture to Incentivize Natural Solutions (SUSTAINS) Act last month. The Act authorizes USDA to accept private contributions to cha...
Port Strike Suspended: A Look at Short-Term and Long-Term Issues
East and Gulf Coast port workers are back on the job today after striking on 1 October. Many of the affected ports will add weekend overtime hours to load trucks; several ports will remain closed to trucks today as containers are offloaded to prepared for resumptions of trucking. Importers repo...
Ludditic Longshoremen; Symptom not Disease
Ludditic Longshoremen Labor strikes are always about money, working conditions and job protection but the latter is skyrocketing to the top. The U.S. East and Gulf Coast port workers’ strike is a prime example. Automation is threatening the number of longshoreman positions needed, and the...
Trade Policy Spin; Interstate Trade Barriers
Trade Policy Spin It is an election year, and the Biden Administration is claiming to have opened up $26.7 billion in overseas market access for American farmers. But that carries the same weight with farmers as grocery buyers hearing that food inflation has declined. They are still paying more...
Hurricane Helene Impacts in the Southeast
After making landfall along the Gulf Coast of Florida, Hurricane Helene struck northeast Georgia and western North Carolina. All commodities in the region have been affected, including pecan orchards and timber land, but also corn, soybeans, cotton and poultry. Given the location, hog pro...
Green for You, Grey for Me; Slaying National Champions
Green for You, Grey for Me Some say the EU has been vague about whether it will seek a delay in the December 30 implementation deadline for implementing the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Brussels told WTO members last week that delay would require a legislative change, which is not imposs...
Policy Quick Hits
Government Funding President Biden yesterday signed a continuing resolution passed by Congress to fund the government at current levels until 20 December. There were no riders – such as an extension of the farm bill – included. This sets up another deadline before the Christmas holi...
Nudge versus Cudgel; New Japanese PM; Pesticide Restrictions
Nudge versus Cudgel The Biden Administration has achieved some market openings in various countries, the most recent being obtaining agreement from Chile to accept American cheese products marked with European origin names like gouda, cheddar, and provolone. Chief Agricultural Negotiator Doug M...
Tariff Spiral and WTO Failure; Nuclear Power and GMO’s
Tariff Spiral and WTO Failure Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump now says he will impose 200 percent tariffs on farm machinery from John Deere should the company move its manufacturing to Mexico. He said he would also provide incentives for foreign companies to move their operations t...
Hypocritical on Process Standards; Buy America Bust; Politics of the Port Strike
Hypocritical on Process Standards EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will make a decision this week on implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation. It is set to take effect at the start of 2025 but both internal and external forces want the measure delayed and modified. That inc...
Pending Port Strikes: U.S. East and Gulf Coasts and Vancouver Canada
With a pending 1 October strike deadline on the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts by the International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA), the U.S. Department of Labor has reached out to the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), a group that represents employers of the East and Gulf Coasts longshore indus...
Too Bad for Ag, Tariff Impacts; Climate and Agriculture
Too Bad for Ag In a surprise from the Biden Administration, Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh said that the U.S. should negotiate more sectoral specific trade agreements and outlined new incentives under the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework to entice more buy-in from other countries...
How Not to Resuscitate; Micromanagement
How Not to Resuscitate The European Parliament rejected the Commission’s proposal to allow tolerance levels for pesticide residues on some imported foods. Allowing a rat pack of politicians to directly decide scientific issues only contributes to domestic decline. Pesticides can be produc...
High Cost of Food; Sick Man in Europe
High Cost of Food Gallop’s annual Work and Education survey found that Americans have soured on the restaurant and grocery business. They still love farmers but have followed Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris in faulting the food industry for inflation. Over the past year, fav...
More Food, and Fewer Children
Few philanthropists are as focused on hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa than Bill Gates. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent billions of dollars on the problem. Activists do not like his promotion of GMO’s as a solution, but they are not as focused as he is on human suffering...
New EU Commission; America First Channels Sovereignty
New EU Commission European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made known her nominees to run the government in Brussels and the trade and agriculture portfolios have interesting selections. As was speculated previously, Christophe Hansen from Luxembourg has been picked for the agricultur...
Ad Hoc Farm Bill in the Works?
The current underlying farm bill (extended for a year last year) expires in 13 days. Another extension is likely, but there is also some movement on Capitol Hill to provide some ad hoc assistance with a potential extension. The 2024 federal fiscal year expires in 13 days. Without funding,...
Future of EU Agriculture; Future of U.S. Agriculture
Future of EU Agriculture Mercosur: Newly appointed French Prime Minister Michel Barnier reiterated French opposition to a trade agreement with Mercosur at the upcoming G20 summit in Brazil, saying he is seeking coalition partners for a blocking minority. Meanwhile, Mercosur leaders receive...
SUSTAINS Act Under the Radar
Today is the final day to submit comments to the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) under a request for information (RFI) on the Sponsoring USDA Sustainability Targets in Agriculture to Incentivize Natural Solutions (SUSTAINS) Act. That legislation was passed as a rider on the 2023 a...
Farm Bill Force; Black Sea Risks; Food Price Competition
Farm Bill Force A coalition of 300 agricultural groups sent a letter to Congressional leaders urging passage of a new farm bill. Some on Capitol Hill see it as unachievable and sought to add a one-year extension of current law onto a continuing resolution. Instead, there will be one more push d...
Tariffs are Popular
Tariffs were a hot topic in last night’s debate between the two U.S. presidential candidates. Trump first imposed tariffs, which Harris calls a sales tax, but her Administration keep most of them and she has not ruled out using them again. Trump added to his pro-tariff position by saying...
Farm Bill and Prop 12
Yesterday, WPI reported that several commodity organizations were in Washington to lobby on the farm bill. One of those groups was the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). One of the solutions they’re seeking is preemption of California’s Proposition 12 and Massachusetts’ Q...
DEI and Trade; Barriers Against Real Emitters
DEI and Trade Today was Day 1 of the annual WTO Public Forum. The sessions were started many years ago as the institution's response to critics. Each year nongovernmental organizations with a dislike of international trade show up in Geneva to share their angst and demands for change. The agend...
Draghi versus Strategic Dialogue; Cooking the CVD Books
Draghi versus Strategic Dialogue Mario Draghi issued his long-awaited report on European competitiveness that had been requested by the European Commission. Its content stands in both contrast and conflict with U.S. goals and the Strategic Dialogue just completed on future support for European...
Producer Groups Getting Restless on Farm Bill
The current farm bill – the extended Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 – expires in 10 days. With no practical window to pass a bill in 2024, it will need to be extended again. From a practical perspective, that needs to be done before 2025 when dairy programs enter a new marketin...
Competitor Opportunities (Future of EU Agriculture Part II)
Yesterday, we took an initial and cursory look at the outcome of the EU’s Strategic Dialogue on farm support. Basically, it says move away from area payments and focus resources on small farmers not large operations. Today, we look at it in more detail, the current spin on its outcome ver...
Competitiveness versus Social Goals; Food to Energy
Competitiveness versus Social Goals The EU completed a strategic dialogue on the future of the Continent’s agriculture and despite the June elections whittling down the power of the Greens, they have won the debate on farm subsidies. The farmers protesting ahead of this year’s elect...
New Guidelines for Substantiating Meat and Poultry Label Claims
Last week, USDA released an updated guideline for label claims on meat products as they pertain to how livestock is raised. Specifics included are claims related to animal welfare, breed, diet (e.g., grass fed), living conditions or raising practices, negative antibiotic use claims, negative ho...
Business Economics on Ballot; Tariff Doublespeak
Business Economics on Ballot The American economy largely relies on large corporations for generating growth and wealth. That engine is under attack on numerous counts by politicians looking to stoke voter support by creating a scapegoat. Democrats have pledged to raise the corporate tax rate f...
Thinking About 2025 Post Election Economy
There has been a spate of favorable economic news. Orders for durable goods were up 9.9 percent in July, mostly on orders for new aircraft. This was the biggest increase since July 2020. Corporate profits rose 1.7 percent in the Q2 over Q1 and are up 8.0 percent from a year ago. GDP in Q2 was r...
No Right to Complain; Runaway Subsidies; Plastics and Cows
No Right to Complain Farmers in Nebraska, Iowa, Florida, and Alabama have no right to complain about Mexico’s attempt to ban GMO corn imports, nor GMO restrictions elsewhere in the world. These four states have all enacted various restrictions on lab-grown meat. Florida and Alabama have o...
No BS Labeling; Price Controls
No BS Labeling USDA issued notice yesterday that companies making environment and animal welfare claims on meat product packaging show more evidence of their practices. For example, using third party verifiers. They should also provide sampling and testing for things like antibiotics. Notably,...
Policy Adaptation; Policy Rejection
Policy Adaptation Europeans reacted to the regulatory over-prescriptiveness emanating out of Brussels by voting early this summer to reduce the number of Greens in the European Parliament. Conservatives won in the Netherlands, are about to take over in Austria and the central German state of Th...
Wheat 180; Thinking Small
Wheat 180 Concerned that wheat modified using biotech would cause the collapse of U.S. wheat’s overseas markets, growers wrote a policy in 2008 (later amended) that required approval of the trait in major wheat markets before domestic production could occur. It contained other burdensome...
Fiscal Policy Post Election
Regardless of the outcome of the U.S. election, policymaking in 2025 and beyond will play out in an environment shaped by the federal budget deficit and national debt. The current state of fiscal policy has been exacerbated by federal spending related to the COVID recovery response. ...
California LCFS Proposes Caps on Soybean and Canola Oil
This month the California Air Resources Board (CARB) issued a proposal to modify the Low Carbon Fuel Standards (LCFS), including a cap on the use of soyoil and canola oil as feedstocks in relation to earning credits under the program. CARB will be holding a hearing on these proposed changes on...
Political Fallacies
He who smelt it, dealt it. This vulgar framing nonetheless holds an underlying truth. Politicians are concurrently demagoguing about high food prices and warning against the fake news espoused by others. It is altogether an odorous room. Politicians in Europe have no evidence that industr...
U.S. Agriculture’s Downfall; Mexican Threats
U.S. Agriculture’s Downfall Technically, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has no fingerprints on her Party’s Convention policy platform. It was produced before President Biden handed her the baton. But insiders say she is likely to continue the trade policy agenda set b...
CBO Farm Bill Score
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has scored the House Agriculture Committee’s farm bill at $322.973 billion over budget over 10 years, and $15.384 over five years. CBO’s scoring is coming under criticism from Committee Chairman Representative Glenn Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) ove...
China Developments; Canned or Uncanned
China Developments For a second day in a row, China bought U.S. soybeans now totaling nearly a half million tons early this week, not counting sales to unknown destinations. These sales come despite a U.S. industry concern that Beijing would ignore the economics favoring U.S. soybeans and purch...
Interconnected Biodiesel Mess; Food Fight over Inflation
Interconnected Biodiesel Mess Markets are globalized and so when the U.S. has border measures against Chinese steel or EVs, more get diverted to the European market. U.S. imports of renewable diesel during the first five months of this year were up 29 percent from a year ago. American producers...
Strategic Petroleum Reserve: Half Full or Half Empty?
On 29 July, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it has purchased 4.65 million barrels of crude oil to be delivered to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) between October and December 2024. With this latest round, DOE has purchased 43.25 million barrels to replenish the SP...
Third Time’s a Charm; California versus Iowa; State Run Economy
Third Time’s a Charm After losing appeals before the Ninth and Eleventh Courts of Appeal, Bayer won a unanimous decision from the Third Circuit Court that the company did not err by not labeling Roundup as a carcinogen. The Court ruled that primacy for labeling pesticides is the Federal I...
Livestock Roundup: Food Inflation Enters the Presidential Campaign
Food inflation has made its way into the Presidential campaign. In a rally in Michigan yesterday, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance, when asked about food inflation, called to “fire” Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and to double down on energy production...
Vietnam FTA; Debt versus Efficiency; Gallows Humor
Vietnam FTA USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service notes that the U.S. is the largest trading partner with Vietnam that lacks a free trade agreement. The result is that U.S. farm product exporters continue to lose market share, especially in higher valued goods. At the same time, Vietnam&rsq...
Leverage at all Cost; NZ Joins Modern Era
Leverage at all Cost Activists have asked the Biden Administration to end the use of economic sanctions against other countries, saying they amount to a collective punishment of civilians. They acknowledge that it is not going away. In fact, all governments use every tool of leverage they can o...
Tracking Sustainable Aviation Fuel
A bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives that would require the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) to add sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to the agency’s monthly published data to provide a benchmark on how the fuel is developing. Recall, the Biden Administrati...
Balancing Offense and Defense; Border Measures; Economic Returns from Sport
Balancing Offense and Defense All growers of all crops are not necessarily competitive even in a large agriculture country. Major U.S. row crop growers have asked USTR to ensure that the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP) provide greater market access for their products. By con...
Politics and Trade; EU Livestock to Get Smaller
Politics and Trade Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her vice president nominee on the ticket and he reveals the divide on trade for politicians. Representing a Midwest agricultural state, Walz has been a supporter of expanding overseas mar...
Former House Aggie Tim Walz is Democrat Veep Candidate
Vice President Kamala Harris has picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate a week before the Democrat National Convention in Chicago. Walz is in his second term as Governor, first elected in 2018, and before that he was a six-term Congressman and member of the House Agriculture Com...
Ideas for Sustenance
Too long; didn’t read, so summarized here. Successful Farming: Farmers are trying new things. We are looking at the data from new harvest methods, changing plant spacings, row spacings, and populations. The fertility program gets pushed later and later. We rotate grazing and diversi...
Another Extension for BTC Proposed
Representatives Mike Carey (R-Ohio) and Ann Kuster (D-New Hampshire) last month introduced the Biodiesel Tax Credit Extension Act of 2024 that would extend the $1.00/gallon biodiesel blender credit through 2025. By way of background, the Biodiesel Tax Credit (BTC) – which applies to both...
Trade Influences
Although the Biden Administration is pushing quasi-trade agreements like APEP and IPEF, they are only expected to impact the movement of goods and services on the margin, if at all. Both President Biden and former President Donald Trump recognize that most Americans now believe that the U.S. lo...
Activists Lose; AI Hurdles; Chevron and Biofuels
Activists Lose As of this week, there are 136 statewide ballot measures to be voted on this November in 39 different states. That is down more than 15 percent from the average for an even-numbered year election. Notably, there are no initiatives being considered that relate to activists’...
A Buffet of Thoughts
Summarized policy ideas under current debate. Technology Revolutions: The U.S. has not missed many (computers, space, nuclear power, semiconductors, solar, the internet, fracking, genetics, AI) but it has been late to the battery revolution. Economist Noah Smith Transatlantic Trade War: T...
Friday Shorts
Non-Meat: In a first, a Europe-based company has sought EU approval to market lab-grown meat, in this case fake foie gras. Some member states have already banned such products. While lab-grown meat remains expensive, and plant-based meat substitutes have faced declining popularity, the increase...
Trump versus Harris Trade Policy; Africa Shines; Trade and the Environment
Trump versus Harris Trade Policy While trade policy analysts assess the future of their vocation under either a Trump or Harris presidency, there is not a lot of uncertainty. Mr. Trump has already advertised his intentions to raise tariffs. He views the U.S. trade deficit as the barometer of ho...
U.S. Policy Battle; WTO Policy Battle; EU Policy Battle
U.S. Policy Battle The two major parties are past the battle over President Biden’s age and should move on to the policy differences. Democrats will try to take their own problem of Biden’s age and apply it to Trump but it is likely to have less salience. Instead, the election will...
Weekend Reading Insights
Because the information superhighway is tl;dr, we did the work for you and summarized the most relevant. Economic Growth: It is not just the result of building tangible things but making use of new ideas. It is relentless technological progress. Economist Daniel Susskind Trade Flows: Water foll...
Biden Drops Out 107 Days Before Election: What Now?
The 2024 election cycle has been unique from the outset, and it just got more so with President Joe Biden opting to step aside. This came after more than three weeks of a crescendo of calls from within the Democrat party for the President to drop out of the race. The trigger was Biden’s d...
Doubling Down on Protectionism; Conflicting CAP Goals
Doubling Down on Protectionism Typically, the party platforms crafted every four years by Republicans and Democrats are equally meaningless. Some of their policy prescriptions become codified but many do not. But speakers at this week’s Republican Convention are leaving no doubt that &ldq...
No Olive Branch; Farm Price Charade
No Olive Branch In 2018, the U.S. began imposing 30-44 percent antidumping and countervailing duties on ripe olives originating in Spain. The EU was aghast since it implied that farm payments could be countervailed. Brussels challenged the duties in the WTO dispute settlement process and won. T...
Trump Picks JD Vance as Running Mate
On the eve of the Republican national nominating convention, Former President Trump has picked freshman Ohio Senator JD Vance, a one-time critic, to be his running mate. There is an element of generational balance; Vance is 39, Trump is 78. Ideologically, Vance who was endorsed by Trump in the...
Food Security Angst; More Trade Agreements; Ag Regains EU Power
Food Security Angst Norway announced that it would spend $6 million a year for five years to build up a 60–75-thousand-ton grain reserve, or a three-month supply. The head of the Olam agricultural trading warned of a potential future food war. Supply chains are fragile, countries are erec...
Transatlantic Dynamic; Doubling Down
Transatlantic DynamicThose in U.S. agricultural trade policy agree with Donald Trump that the EU treats America badly. The large U.S. agricultural trade deficit with the EU has been growing at a compound annual growth rate of over 6 percent. Since WWII, the U.S. has subsidized Europe’s se...
Tear it Up II; Splitting GM Wheat; DOFE
Tear it Up IICanada’s finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, resigned and President-elect Donald Trump is being blamed. That is an over-simplification and she appears to have run away from a fight. But her resignation raises the question of how Canada and Mexico will handle Mr. Trump. Both countr...
Lame Duck Docket: Appropriations, Farm Bill and Ag Related National Defense Authorization Provisions
As of today, Congress has four days until government funding expires, and 15 days to pass a farm bill extension before (31 December) permanent law goes into effect, which could have negative impacts on commodity markets. Lawmakers are still working to finalize a stopgap funding bill that w...
Trump’s War on American Agriculture
American agriculture is already facing a less affluent future. Commodity prices have softened, and South America now dominates the global export market. The U.S. share of global agricultural trade has fallen by two-thirds. Major importers have typically chafed under their dependence upon foreig...
Argentina’s Economy One Year after Milei
A look at Argentina’s fiscal and economic policy is instructive on two levels. First, understanding its impact for Argentina’s position in ag commodity trade, and second as a policy analog. President-elect Trump will create the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which will be part o...
Food Fight Ahead; UPF Boogeyman
Food Fight AheadThere are two committee confirmation hearings that aggies will be watching intently early next year: the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) on the nomination of RFK, Jr.; and the Senate Agriculture Committee on the nomination of Brooke Rollins. Th...
Hunger Games; Power of Deregulation
Hunger GamesDonald Trump’s Cabinet nominees are unconventional, far more so than in his first term as president. It could result in a shakeup of staid and static policy prescriptions, or it could amount to nothing more than a bunch of four-year-olds attempting to play soccer. The DNI nominee qu...
New Leadership for Congressional Energy Committees
With the retirement from Congress of House Energy and Commerce (HEC) Committee chair Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA), the gavel was up for grabs in what is arguably the most powerful committee in the House. The third and fourth ranking Republicans, Representatives Bob Latta of Ohio and Brett Guthr...
Regulation Ruse; FTA’s Needed; Big is Bad
Regulation RuseFarmers in Europe oppose the recently completed free trade agreement with Mercosur, and have long prevented a transatlantic agreement with the U.S. They argue that their competitors in the Americas produce under less stringent environmental and labor standards. That may be true b...
EU’s Approach to Trump; Ignoring FTA’s; Laying the Trap
EU’s Approach to TrumpAs Europe’s economy founders under a tax and regulate approach, and its security becomes increasingly threatened by appeasement and inadequate defense spending, its leaders talk ready to get tough with Donald Trump. Some suggest preempting Trump tariffs by negotiating an e...
Long Slow Process for 45Z Still Ongoing
Part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act was section 45Z, the Clean Fuels Production Credit. It is in effect from 1 January 2025 through 31 December 2027. At the time, this provision was hailed as a potential game changer for biofuels and feedstock production. The problem is guidance for qualif...
EU-Mercosur Fallout; Get Your Own; WTO Ignored
EU-Mercosur FalloutThe EU and Mercosur reached agreement on a quarter century effort to have a free trade agreement. Tariffs will be removed on over 90 percent of two-way trade. The agreement has further procedural hurdles to overcome. France leads an effort to construct a blocking minority of...
Squaring Budget and Taxes; Trade War; F&V Self-Destruction
Squaring Budget and TaxesU.S. agricultural spending could get squeezed between the incoming Trump Administration’s desire to extend tax cuts, which creates a $4 trillion budget hole, and reducing the size of government. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk an...
Reorganizing in Congress – Potential Moves Among Aggies
Congress will return to Washington this week to kick off the post-election lame duck session of Congress. The docket is busy with only 12 joint legislative days left and government funding set to expire on 20 December. And the Farm Bill is set to expire on 31 December unless an extension can be...
Trade Abusers; Working Class Appeals; Healthy Elites
Trade AbusersThe West blames China for over-production but the global narrative is that China has embraced global trade and it is the U.S. that has become isolationist. This framing is disputed by Stewart Paterson at the Singapore-based Hinrich Foundation. He notes that trade flows show the opp...
Trump Tariffs Round Two – Canada and Mexico
In various social media posts, President-elect Trump last week announced his plans to implement a 25 percent tariff on all goods from Canada and Mexico, stating “… as one of my first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25 percent tariff on all pro...
Food versus Populism; Food in Perspective; Beauty of the Algorithm; Tariffs as Panacea
Food versus PopulismPresident-elect Donald Trump’s selection of RFK, Jr. to oversee a food system that he wants to remake without chemicals and ultra-processing, or mega farms, or seed oils, is going to be both fun and excruciating to watch. The sheer mass of the food-sector battleship should b...
USTR Nominee; Changing Eating Habits
USTR NomineeTariffs are President-Elect Trumps most repeated policy focus but his selection of the next U.S. Trade Representative came nearly last. At least Jamieson Greer is a somewhat known quantity. World Trade Online says, “Stakeholders see what they want to see in Greer as USTR.” Having se...
Channeling Hamilton; Gastronationalism Gone Awry; Science Reverts to Nonpartisan; Black Friday Deals
Channeling HamiltonAlexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, encouraged the Tariff Act of 1789, the Tariff Act of 1790, and the Tariff Act of 1792. He used tariffs to fund the government and protect domestic industries from British exports. President-elect Trump has pledged...
Brooke Rollins: New Ag Secretary Pick
During the Presidential campaign, one topic on which Donad Trump was introspective was on his staff and cabinet appointments. He mentioned more than once on the campaign trail that getting the “right people” in jobs was one area in which he would focus the second time around. Typically Trump me...
Most Googled; Maladministration; Tough Love
Most GoogledOn Saturday, 23 November, the most Googled thing for those in U.S. agriculture policy circles was Brooke Rollins. Her name had not been amongst the 15 or so possible names mentioned in media reports to head USDA. A prominent name added to the list late last week was former U.S...
China-Brazil Bilateral at the G20 Summit: New Deals to Be Announced
The G20 meets in Rio de Janeiro this week, and Presidents Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva of Brazil and Xi Jinping of China have a bilateral side meeting on their respective calendars. The agenda is focused on promoting development strategies between China and Brazil.Brazil’s Ag Minister Carlos Fav...
Farm Bill Deficiencies; Transatlantic Tensions; GMO Correction
Farm Bill DeficienciesU.S. Senate Democrats have finally laid down their marker in a bicameral negotiation over a farm bill renewal. In it, Democrats conceded to a House Republican initiative to double spending on export promotion programs. However, they did not accept the Republican position t...
Agriculture Committees in the 119th Congress
With the Republicans maintaining control of the House, Representative G.T. Thompson (R-PA) will retain the gavel as committee chairman, unless he is nominated for Secretary of Agriculture by President-elect Trump. Thompson’s name has been mentioned more frequently as of late as a potential nomi...
RFK, Jr. Equals Opportunity; Quarter Century of GMO’s
RFK, Jr. Equals OpportunityRobert F. Kennedy, Jr. wants to eliminate processed foods, artificial colorings, chemicals, and other broadly named boogeymen. He and his ilk are social media trolls that disparage the regulated and regulators alike, fabricating conspiracy theories about Big Food want...
McSustainability Through Feed Efficiency
McDonalds has entered the sustainability space by partnering with Syngenta and paying cattle producers to use Syngenta’s Enogen Trait corn to improve feed efficiency. Enogen corn contains an enzyme, alpha amylase. This enzyme has been added during the ethanol production process to induce starch...
EU Studies Trading Houses
As part of its witch hunt for unfair market practices, the EU Parliament’s AGRI Committee requested a study of the major agricultural commodity trading companies and their impacts. The study may inform populists in the U.S. that also see consolidated industries as inherently harmful, but...
Trump’s Tariff Plan; Whither Europe; RTO Beats WFH
Trump’s Tariff PlanFew things attract more speculation than how President-Elect Donald Trump will model his plan to increase tariffs on imports. Some economists have taken his most exaggerated claims and predict they will cause slower economic growth and higher inflation. At least one advisor s...
Political Landscape Taking Shape
After the 2024 elections, the Republicans look to have taken control of Congress, along with a Trump victory, providing a Republican triple sweep. The Senate GOP majority is 53 to 47; and the House GOP majority is still TBD. However, as of today, the Republicans have secured 215 seats, and Demo...
Deep Bench to Fight RFK; China Market Risk; Thankless Job
Deep Bench to Fight RFKBeing the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture is usually a pretty good job. It involves doling out billions of dollars, the constituency is dominated by courteous country people, and controversies tend to be minor. The person serving the longest in any Cabinet position was Jame...
Senate Committee Changes and Ethanol Legislation
As WPI noted a week ago on 4 November, As a general rule, a Republican agenda is likely to be friendlier to liquid fuels, especially petroleum fuels, whereas a Democrat agenda is more likely to include a role for electric vehicles, and a renewable fuels policy that will focus on reducing c...
Who Might Be the Next Ag Secretary?
As most Presidents-elect do, former President and President-elect Donald Trump has named his new White House Chief of Staff as his first appointment. It is Susi S. Wiles. Wiles was the co-manager of Trump’s 2024 campaign, and also was a key strategist focused on Florida in his 2016 and 2020 cam...
Transatlantic Trade War; Traders Beat Pollsters; Transatlantic Lesson
Transatlantic Trade WarU.S. equity markets rose yesterday on news of Donald Trump’s victory, while shares in Europe fell. The EU is America’s biggest trading partner and Trump promises tariffs. EU officials are strategizing on how to deal with a Trump presidency, with some urging cooperation, a...
The Day After
The political establishment in Washington is stunned following yesterday's rout by Donald Trump and the Republicans. The Democrats’ arch nemesis not only survived everything they threw at him, but he also took an increasing share of the minority voting block that they claimed as their own. It w...
Tax Policy Outlook Post Election
After the votes are fully counted, as a new Administration forms, and Congress organizes, WPI will take a deeper look into the policy implications of today’s election. From today’s point of view, unless this election is an unexpected blowout (countering polling data that shows it neck and neck...
EU Confirmation Hearings; Japanese Independence; Lemonades out of Lemons; Border War
EU Confirmation HearingsIn a few months, it will be the turn of either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris’s cabinet nominees to seek confirmation by the legislature but this week it is Europe’s Commission designates confronting the hurdle of the European Parliament (EP). Maroš Šefčovič, Commissioner...
Renewable Fuel Policy Outlook in 2025
Tomorrow is election day; the make-up of Congress and who is in the White House is expected to have an impact on renewable fuel policy in 2025. As a general rule, a Republican agenda is likely to be friendlier to liquid fuels, especially petroleum fuels, whereas a Democrat agenda is more likely...
Transatlantic Inverse; Farm Bill Chances
Transatlantic InverseDepending on tomorrow’s election outcome, American businesses will either be saddled with more taxes, regulations, and attacks on consolidation, or be hit with higher import tariffs and maybe the goofy ideas of people like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. By contrast, Europe has now...
State Directed Meat; Living Space
State Directed MeatUSDA has been issuing loans and grants to startup livestock businesses with the goal of diversifying the industry, providing producers with more options, and lowering the price of meat. Now Pure Prairie Poultry of Minnesota, a beneficiary of $38.7 million in loan guarantees a...
Misdirected Fire; Over-Capacity
Misdirected FireThe Kamala Harris campaign is frustrated that the economy is hot, inflation has dissipated to just 2.4 percent, and yet voters are not feeling it. Politicians learned long ago to never tell the voters they are wrong and have misperceptions. Consequently, she has been acknowledgi...
Interest Rate Outlook
The Fed meets next week, the day after the election. It looks likely there will be a rate cut again for the second time in as many meetings. The federal funds futures market is pricing in a 95.4 percent probability of a cut. At the September meeting, Fed members signaled another 50 basis point...
Post-Election Transatlantic
The EU’s dependency on the U.S. for both defense and economic well-being has focused discussions in Brussels on what the relationship will look like should Donald Trump win on 5 November. The Biden Administration initiated a Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in 2021 with designs to coordinate...
Newsom for President; Fake Meat Lacks Standing
Newsome for PresidentUntil this past Friday, U.S. ethanol producers feared that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) might make an effort to limit the marketing of their products in the Golden State. Now they are singing in the streets as California Governor Gavin Newsom instructed CARB to...
RFK Jr Role in a Potential Trump Admin Worrying Aggies
With the election one week from tomorrow, many aggies are turning their attention to the probable role of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a Trump Administration should Trump win the election. Over the last week, this is literally the biggest topic of conversation among this analyst’s contacts and sour...
BRICS Grain Exchange; Transatlantic Gaslighting
BRICS Grain ExchangeVladmir Putin used his BRICS conference in Kazan, Russia to formally suggest the creation of a grain exchange by the bloc of countries. He said such an exchange could later be expanded to other products and that it would " contribute to the formation of fair and predictable...
Inflation Disconnect; Economic Opinions
Inflation DisconnectEconomists including those at the Federal Reserve use so-called core inflation when assessing the level of rising prices in the economy. Core inflation excludes food and energy prices since they are considered more volatile, and less directly impacted by the Fed’s monetary p...
U.S. Dietary Guidelines: Booze and Junk Food
Every five years, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, issued by USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are updated. The new guidelines will be issued next year for 2025-2030. This guidance provides advice on what to eat and drink to meet nutrient needs, promote health, and...
Policy Shortz
U.S. – EU Reset: The transatlantic relationship must be reset after the upcoming election. Brussels produced a state-by-state report on Europe’s trade and investment engagement to help set the environment. U.S. technology firms argue it is ludicrous for Europe to think it can be competitive in...
Biggest Monopoly; Aggies Challenge Trump; Food Safety Risks and Perceptions
Biggest MonopolyReflecting voter concerns about food inflation, both Harris and Trump are attacking the food system and implying concerns about monopoly power. But no industry is as monopolistic as politics where consumer choice is often limited to just two parties. Voters are near evenly split...
State Control of Markets – Russia; State Control of Markets – U.S
State Control of MarketsRussia’s agriculture ministry recently “suggested” that grain exporters not sell wheat internationally below the minimum price of $250/MT FOB. The minimum price approach is less clumsy than export quotas but is a harder stop than Moscow’ use of export taxes to try and ma...
Asymmetric on Tariffs
Most economists are clear in describing tariffs as a border tax. Their impacts include increasing costs on consumers and reducing trade, and thus self-harming a nation’s economic well-being. Yet, it is difficult to identify a nation that doesn’t use tariffs, and most utilize them more than the...
Farm Subsidies on the March
Subsidies can increase output and there are many ways to subsidize an industry, but that doesn’t mean that countries should do it. Cost of Production: The EU badly wants to become self-sufficient in plant protein. More than four decades ago Europe lost a dispute settlement cas...
Politics: Will 2024 Election Yield an Unprecedented Triple Flip?
The 2024 election is three weeks from tomorrow. This cycle has been unusual. The campaign started as a Biden versus Trump rematch of the 2020 campaign, the first such rematch since 1956 (only the seventh time in history and only the second time since 1900). However, President Biden stepped down...
Policy Potpourri
Good Many Organisms: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded this week to scientists at Google DeepMind using AI to predict the structure of proteins and inventing new ones. Capitaslizing on the opportunities, Ginkgo Bioworks announced that it would make available to researchers its API that u...
War on Food Companies; Holding Back the Future
War on Food Companies Market skeptics like U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) have stepped up their attack on food companies by accusing them of price gouging by “squeezing profits out of consumers” through shrinkflation and avoiding federal taxes. They charge that comp...
USDA Announces Cattle Price Discovery Rule
Today, the Biden Administration issued an Advanced Notice of Public Rulemaking (ANPR) on Price Discovery and Transparency in Markets for Fed Cattle. This is the fifth livestock and poultry market regulation put forth under the Packers and Stockyards Act (P&SA) and under the Biden Executive...
Allowing Private Contributions to Conservation Programs to Create Public Assets
USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) closed the comment period for the implementing rules for the Sponsoring USDA Sustainability Targets in Agriculture to Incentivize Natural Solutions (SUSTAINS) Act last month. The Act authorizes USDA to accept private contributions to cha...
Port Strike Suspended: A Look at Short-Term and Long-Term Issues
East and Gulf Coast port workers are back on the job today after striking on 1 October. Many of the affected ports will add weekend overtime hours to load trucks; several ports will remain closed to trucks today as containers are offloaded to prepared for resumptions of trucking. Importers repo...
Ludditic Longshoremen; Symptom not Disease
Ludditic Longshoremen Labor strikes are always about money, working conditions and job protection but the latter is skyrocketing to the top. The U.S. East and Gulf Coast port workers’ strike is a prime example. Automation is threatening the number of longshoreman positions needed, and the...
Trade Policy Spin; Interstate Trade Barriers
Trade Policy Spin It is an election year, and the Biden Administration is claiming to have opened up $26.7 billion in overseas market access for American farmers. But that carries the same weight with farmers as grocery buyers hearing that food inflation has declined. They are still paying more...
Hurricane Helene Impacts in the Southeast
After making landfall along the Gulf Coast of Florida, Hurricane Helene struck northeast Georgia and western North Carolina. All commodities in the region have been affected, including pecan orchards and timber land, but also corn, soybeans, cotton and poultry. Given the location, hog pro...
Green for You, Grey for Me; Slaying National Champions
Green for You, Grey for Me Some say the EU has been vague about whether it will seek a delay in the December 30 implementation deadline for implementing the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Brussels told WTO members last week that delay would require a legislative change, which is not imposs...
Policy Quick Hits
Government Funding President Biden yesterday signed a continuing resolution passed by Congress to fund the government at current levels until 20 December. There were no riders – such as an extension of the farm bill – included. This sets up another deadline before the Christmas holi...
Nudge versus Cudgel; New Japanese PM; Pesticide Restrictions
Nudge versus Cudgel The Biden Administration has achieved some market openings in various countries, the most recent being obtaining agreement from Chile to accept American cheese products marked with European origin names like gouda, cheddar, and provolone. Chief Agricultural Negotiator Doug M...
Tariff Spiral and WTO Failure; Nuclear Power and GMO’s
Tariff Spiral and WTO Failure Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump now says he will impose 200 percent tariffs on farm machinery from John Deere should the company move its manufacturing to Mexico. He said he would also provide incentives for foreign companies to move their operations t...
Hypocritical on Process Standards; Buy America Bust; Politics of the Port Strike
Hypocritical on Process Standards EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will make a decision this week on implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation. It is set to take effect at the start of 2025 but both internal and external forces want the measure delayed and modified. That inc...
Pending Port Strikes: U.S. East and Gulf Coasts and Vancouver Canada
With a pending 1 October strike deadline on the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts by the International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA), the U.S. Department of Labor has reached out to the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), a group that represents employers of the East and Gulf Coasts longshore indus...
Too Bad for Ag, Tariff Impacts; Climate and Agriculture
Too Bad for Ag In a surprise from the Biden Administration, Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh said that the U.S. should negotiate more sectoral specific trade agreements and outlined new incentives under the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework to entice more buy-in from other countries...
How Not to Resuscitate; Micromanagement
How Not to Resuscitate The European Parliament rejected the Commission’s proposal to allow tolerance levels for pesticide residues on some imported foods. Allowing a rat pack of politicians to directly decide scientific issues only contributes to domestic decline. Pesticides can be produc...
High Cost of Food; Sick Man in Europe
High Cost of Food Gallop’s annual Work and Education survey found that Americans have soured on the restaurant and grocery business. They still love farmers but have followed Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris in faulting the food industry for inflation. Over the past year, fav...
More Food, and Fewer Children
Few philanthropists are as focused on hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa than Bill Gates. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent billions of dollars on the problem. Activists do not like his promotion of GMO’s as a solution, but they are not as focused as he is on human suffering...
New EU Commission; America First Channels Sovereignty
New EU Commission European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made known her nominees to run the government in Brussels and the trade and agriculture portfolios have interesting selections. As was speculated previously, Christophe Hansen from Luxembourg has been picked for the agricultur...
Ad Hoc Farm Bill in the Works?
The current underlying farm bill (extended for a year last year) expires in 13 days. Another extension is likely, but there is also some movement on Capitol Hill to provide some ad hoc assistance with a potential extension. The 2024 federal fiscal year expires in 13 days. Without funding,...
Future of EU Agriculture; Future of U.S. Agriculture
Future of EU Agriculture Mercosur: Newly appointed French Prime Minister Michel Barnier reiterated French opposition to a trade agreement with Mercosur at the upcoming G20 summit in Brazil, saying he is seeking coalition partners for a blocking minority. Meanwhile, Mercosur leaders receive...
SUSTAINS Act Under the Radar
Today is the final day to submit comments to the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) under a request for information (RFI) on the Sponsoring USDA Sustainability Targets in Agriculture to Incentivize Natural Solutions (SUSTAINS) Act. That legislation was passed as a rider on the 2023 a...
Farm Bill Force; Black Sea Risks; Food Price Competition
Farm Bill Force A coalition of 300 agricultural groups sent a letter to Congressional leaders urging passage of a new farm bill. Some on Capitol Hill see it as unachievable and sought to add a one-year extension of current law onto a continuing resolution. Instead, there will be one more push d...
Tariffs are Popular
Tariffs were a hot topic in last night’s debate between the two U.S. presidential candidates. Trump first imposed tariffs, which Harris calls a sales tax, but her Administration keep most of them and she has not ruled out using them again. Trump added to his pro-tariff position by saying...
Farm Bill and Prop 12
Yesterday, WPI reported that several commodity organizations were in Washington to lobby on the farm bill. One of those groups was the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). One of the solutions they’re seeking is preemption of California’s Proposition 12 and Massachusetts’ Q...
DEI and Trade; Barriers Against Real Emitters
DEI and Trade Today was Day 1 of the annual WTO Public Forum. The sessions were started many years ago as the institution's response to critics. Each year nongovernmental organizations with a dislike of international trade show up in Geneva to share their angst and demands for change. The agend...
Draghi versus Strategic Dialogue; Cooking the CVD Books
Draghi versus Strategic Dialogue Mario Draghi issued his long-awaited report on European competitiveness that had been requested by the European Commission. Its content stands in both contrast and conflict with U.S. goals and the Strategic Dialogue just completed on future support for European...
Producer Groups Getting Restless on Farm Bill
The current farm bill – the extended Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 – expires in 10 days. With no practical window to pass a bill in 2024, it will need to be extended again. From a practical perspective, that needs to be done before 2025 when dairy programs enter a new marketin...
Competitor Opportunities (Future of EU Agriculture Part II)
Yesterday, we took an initial and cursory look at the outcome of the EU’s Strategic Dialogue on farm support. Basically, it says move away from area payments and focus resources on small farmers not large operations. Today, we look at it in more detail, the current spin on its outcome ver...
Competitiveness versus Social Goals; Food to Energy
Competitiveness versus Social Goals The EU completed a strategic dialogue on the future of the Continent’s agriculture and despite the June elections whittling down the power of the Greens, they have won the debate on farm subsidies. The farmers protesting ahead of this year’s elect...
New Guidelines for Substantiating Meat and Poultry Label Claims
Last week, USDA released an updated guideline for label claims on meat products as they pertain to how livestock is raised. Specifics included are claims related to animal welfare, breed, diet (e.g., grass fed), living conditions or raising practices, negative antibiotic use claims, negative ho...
Business Economics on Ballot; Tariff Doublespeak
Business Economics on Ballot The American economy largely relies on large corporations for generating growth and wealth. That engine is under attack on numerous counts by politicians looking to stoke voter support by creating a scapegoat. Democrats have pledged to raise the corporate tax rate f...
Thinking About 2025 Post Election Economy
There has been a spate of favorable economic news. Orders for durable goods were up 9.9 percent in July, mostly on orders for new aircraft. This was the biggest increase since July 2020. Corporate profits rose 1.7 percent in the Q2 over Q1 and are up 8.0 percent from a year ago. GDP in Q2 was r...
No Right to Complain; Runaway Subsidies; Plastics and Cows
No Right to Complain Farmers in Nebraska, Iowa, Florida, and Alabama have no right to complain about Mexico’s attempt to ban GMO corn imports, nor GMO restrictions elsewhere in the world. These four states have all enacted various restrictions on lab-grown meat. Florida and Alabama have o...
No BS Labeling; Price Controls
No BS Labeling USDA issued notice yesterday that companies making environment and animal welfare claims on meat product packaging show more evidence of their practices. For example, using third party verifiers. They should also provide sampling and testing for things like antibiotics. Notably,...
Policy Adaptation; Policy Rejection
Policy Adaptation Europeans reacted to the regulatory over-prescriptiveness emanating out of Brussels by voting early this summer to reduce the number of Greens in the European Parliament. Conservatives won in the Netherlands, are about to take over in Austria and the central German state of Th...
Wheat 180; Thinking Small
Wheat 180 Concerned that wheat modified using biotech would cause the collapse of U.S. wheat’s overseas markets, growers wrote a policy in 2008 (later amended) that required approval of the trait in major wheat markets before domestic production could occur. It contained other burdensome...
Fiscal Policy Post Election
Regardless of the outcome of the U.S. election, policymaking in 2025 and beyond will play out in an environment shaped by the federal budget deficit and national debt. The current state of fiscal policy has been exacerbated by federal spending related to the COVID recovery response. ...
California LCFS Proposes Caps on Soybean and Canola Oil
This month the California Air Resources Board (CARB) issued a proposal to modify the Low Carbon Fuel Standards (LCFS), including a cap on the use of soyoil and canola oil as feedstocks in relation to earning credits under the program. CARB will be holding a hearing on these proposed changes on...
Political Fallacies
He who smelt it, dealt it. This vulgar framing nonetheless holds an underlying truth. Politicians are concurrently demagoguing about high food prices and warning against the fake news espoused by others. It is altogether an odorous room. Politicians in Europe have no evidence that industr...
U.S. Agriculture’s Downfall; Mexican Threats
U.S. Agriculture’s Downfall Technically, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has no fingerprints on her Party’s Convention policy platform. It was produced before President Biden handed her the baton. But insiders say she is likely to continue the trade policy agenda set b...
CBO Farm Bill Score
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has scored the House Agriculture Committee’s farm bill at $322.973 billion over budget over 10 years, and $15.384 over five years. CBO’s scoring is coming under criticism from Committee Chairman Representative Glenn Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) ove...
China Developments; Canned or Uncanned
China Developments For a second day in a row, China bought U.S. soybeans now totaling nearly a half million tons early this week, not counting sales to unknown destinations. These sales come despite a U.S. industry concern that Beijing would ignore the economics favoring U.S. soybeans and purch...
Interconnected Biodiesel Mess; Food Fight over Inflation
Interconnected Biodiesel Mess Markets are globalized and so when the U.S. has border measures against Chinese steel or EVs, more get diverted to the European market. U.S. imports of renewable diesel during the first five months of this year were up 29 percent from a year ago. American producers...
Strategic Petroleum Reserve: Half Full or Half Empty?
On 29 July, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it has purchased 4.65 million barrels of crude oil to be delivered to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) between October and December 2024. With this latest round, DOE has purchased 43.25 million barrels to replenish the SP...
Third Time’s a Charm; California versus Iowa; State Run Economy
Third Time’s a Charm After losing appeals before the Ninth and Eleventh Courts of Appeal, Bayer won a unanimous decision from the Third Circuit Court that the company did not err by not labeling Roundup as a carcinogen. The Court ruled that primacy for labeling pesticides is the Federal I...
Livestock Roundup: Food Inflation Enters the Presidential Campaign
Food inflation has made its way into the Presidential campaign. In a rally in Michigan yesterday, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance, when asked about food inflation, called to “fire” Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and to double down on energy production...
Vietnam FTA; Debt versus Efficiency; Gallows Humor
Vietnam FTA USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service notes that the U.S. is the largest trading partner with Vietnam that lacks a free trade agreement. The result is that U.S. farm product exporters continue to lose market share, especially in higher valued goods. At the same time, Vietnam&rsq...
Leverage at all Cost; NZ Joins Modern Era
Leverage at all Cost Activists have asked the Biden Administration to end the use of economic sanctions against other countries, saying they amount to a collective punishment of civilians. They acknowledge that it is not going away. In fact, all governments use every tool of leverage they can o...
Tracking Sustainable Aviation Fuel
A bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives that would require the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) to add sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to the agency’s monthly published data to provide a benchmark on how the fuel is developing. Recall, the Biden Administrati...
Balancing Offense and Defense; Border Measures; Economic Returns from Sport
Balancing Offense and Defense All growers of all crops are not necessarily competitive even in a large agriculture country. Major U.S. row crop growers have asked USTR to ensure that the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP) provide greater market access for their products. By con...
Politics and Trade; EU Livestock to Get Smaller
Politics and Trade Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her vice president nominee on the ticket and he reveals the divide on trade for politicians. Representing a Midwest agricultural state, Walz has been a supporter of expanding overseas mar...
Former House Aggie Tim Walz is Democrat Veep Candidate
Vice President Kamala Harris has picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate a week before the Democrat National Convention in Chicago. Walz is in his second term as Governor, first elected in 2018, and before that he was a six-term Congressman and member of the House Agriculture Com...
Ideas for Sustenance
Too long; didn’t read, so summarized here. Successful Farming: Farmers are trying new things. We are looking at the data from new harvest methods, changing plant spacings, row spacings, and populations. The fertility program gets pushed later and later. We rotate grazing and diversi...
Another Extension for BTC Proposed
Representatives Mike Carey (R-Ohio) and Ann Kuster (D-New Hampshire) last month introduced the Biodiesel Tax Credit Extension Act of 2024 that would extend the $1.00/gallon biodiesel blender credit through 2025. By way of background, the Biodiesel Tax Credit (BTC) – which applies to both...
Trade Influences
Although the Biden Administration is pushing quasi-trade agreements like APEP and IPEF, they are only expected to impact the movement of goods and services on the margin, if at all. Both President Biden and former President Donald Trump recognize that most Americans now believe that the U.S. lo...
Activists Lose; AI Hurdles; Chevron and Biofuels
Activists Lose As of this week, there are 136 statewide ballot measures to be voted on this November in 39 different states. That is down more than 15 percent from the average for an even-numbered year election. Notably, there are no initiatives being considered that relate to activists’...
A Buffet of Thoughts
Summarized policy ideas under current debate. Technology Revolutions: The U.S. has not missed many (computers, space, nuclear power, semiconductors, solar, the internet, fracking, genetics, AI) but it has been late to the battery revolution. Economist Noah Smith Transatlantic Trade War: T...
Friday Shorts
Non-Meat: In a first, a Europe-based company has sought EU approval to market lab-grown meat, in this case fake foie gras. Some member states have already banned such products. While lab-grown meat remains expensive, and plant-based meat substitutes have faced declining popularity, the increase...
Trump versus Harris Trade Policy; Africa Shines; Trade and the Environment
Trump versus Harris Trade Policy While trade policy analysts assess the future of their vocation under either a Trump or Harris presidency, there is not a lot of uncertainty. Mr. Trump has already advertised his intentions to raise tariffs. He views the U.S. trade deficit as the barometer of ho...
U.S. Policy Battle; WTO Policy Battle; EU Policy Battle
U.S. Policy Battle The two major parties are past the battle over President Biden’s age and should move on to the policy differences. Democrats will try to take their own problem of Biden’s age and apply it to Trump but it is likely to have less salience. Instead, the election will...
Weekend Reading Insights
Because the information superhighway is tl;dr, we did the work for you and summarized the most relevant. Economic Growth: It is not just the result of building tangible things but making use of new ideas. It is relentless technological progress. Economist Daniel Susskind Trade Flows: Water foll...
Biden Drops Out 107 Days Before Election: What Now?
The 2024 election cycle has been unique from the outset, and it just got more so with President Joe Biden opting to step aside. This came after more than three weeks of a crescendo of calls from within the Democrat party for the President to drop out of the race. The trigger was Biden’s d...
Doubling Down on Protectionism; Conflicting CAP Goals
Doubling Down on Protectionism Typically, the party platforms crafted every four years by Republicans and Democrats are equally meaningless. Some of their policy prescriptions become codified but many do not. But speakers at this week’s Republican Convention are leaving no doubt that &ldq...
No Olive Branch; Farm Price Charade
No Olive Branch In 2018, the U.S. began imposing 30-44 percent antidumping and countervailing duties on ripe olives originating in Spain. The EU was aghast since it implied that farm payments could be countervailed. Brussels challenged the duties in the WTO dispute settlement process and won. T...
Trump Picks JD Vance as Running Mate
On the eve of the Republican national nominating convention, Former President Trump has picked freshman Ohio Senator JD Vance, a one-time critic, to be his running mate. There is an element of generational balance; Vance is 39, Trump is 78. Ideologically, Vance who was endorsed by Trump in the...
Food Security Angst; More Trade Agreements; Ag Regains EU Power
Food Security Angst Norway announced that it would spend $6 million a year for five years to build up a 60–75-thousand-ton grain reserve, or a three-month supply. The head of the Olam agricultural trading warned of a potential future food war. Supply chains are fragile, countries are erec...