Trade Deadline Extended, Threats Sharpened; African Moves; WTO Reforms
Trade Deadline Extended, Threats Sharpened President Trump announced that the 9 July deadline for trade agreements with the U.S. to avoid reciprocal tariffs will be extended to 1 August. Eighteen countries are being targeted for trade negotiations, and a smaller subset received letters today on...
Skinny Farm Bill Left to Finish
President Trump said yesterday that the U.S. is nearing several new trade deals and that letters will be sent to trading partners by 9 July warning of increased tariffs set to take effect on 1 August. That announcement effectively extends the administration’s trade deadline from this week...
U.S. July Fourth Holiday
Please note that Ag Perspectives will not be published tomorrow, Friday, 4 July in observance of the Fourth of July holiday in the U.S. We will resume our normal report schedule on Monday 7 July...
Vietnam Deal; EU Green Targets
Vietnam Deal As the 9 July deadline approaches, a second trade deal was announced by President Trump. He says the U.S. will apply a 20 percent tariff on imports from Vietnam (versus 46 percent reciprocal), and 40 percent if the product was transshipped. The duty could vary based on domestic con...
Prop 12 Lives, Long Live Prop 12; Power of Ag; Trump Power
Prop 12 Lives, Long Live Prop 12 Delineating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution from the rights of the states has long been a legal fight in the U.S. Thus, it was notable last night when the U.S. Senate voted 99-1 to remove language from the Big Beautiful Bill that would have restric...
Un-Trade Agreements; Ag in Big Beautiful Bill; CAP Controversy
Un-Trade Agreements It did not take long for Canadian officials to reverse their digital services tax after President Trump threatened to end trade negotiations. Canada is second only to Mexico in terms of trade dependence on the U.S. Many Canadian producers are already hurting from trade sanct...
Crop Life America Registers Strong Comments on MAHA Strategy
In a 12-page letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Crop Life America (CLA) outlined a number of issues for the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) strategy on pesticides to further “our shared goals of promoting children’s health and ensuring that pesticide regulatory...
Trade Negotiation Update; Miscellaneous
Trade Negotiation Update There were no shortages of eye-opening news reports this week and the notable one on trade late today was President Trump’s announcement that he is ending trade negotiations with Canada. Ottawa’s decision to impose a retroactive digital services tax on Ameri...
Input Costs Forecast to Rise, Led by Fertilizer
After rising sharply in 2022, input costs remain stubbornly high yet today. At the same time, the prices received for major crops like corn, soybeans and wheat have fallen by as much as 30 percent over the same period. In response to these economic headwinds, Congress stepped up thr...
Ignoring Margins; Trump Tariff Win
Ignoring Margins The U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights held a hearing yesterday on, Reducing Regulatory Burdens to Unlock Innovation and Spur New Entry and the meat packing industry was front and center. UC-Berkely Senior Fellow Doha Mekki co...
Trade Agreements Challenged; No Non-reciprocals; Miniature Meat Plant
Trade Agreements Challenged The 9 July deadline for countries to reach individual trade agreements with the U.S. is fast approaching and while the Trump Administration says negotiations are progressing, there are some high hurdles. Protectionists from India to Europe are pressuring their policy...
U.S. Juneteenth Holiday
The CBOT/CME markets and our offices will be closed tomorrow, Thursday, 19 June in observance of the U.S. Juneteenth holiday. Please note that the next Ag Perspectives will be published on Friday, 20 June. ...
One Big Beautiful Bill Unveiled in the Senate
The Senate Finance Committee and its chairman Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) have unveiled their tax bill as part of budget reconciliation to extend the 2017 Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. According to the Committee, the bill … prevents a more-than $4 trillion tax hike on American families a...
G7 Disappointments; Deregulation and Consolidation
G7 Disappointments The Israeli-Iran war stole the thunder of the G7 meeting in Canada and while President Trump said ahead of the conference that he hoped to achieve trade deals, only the UK’s Keir Starmer has managed an agreement. However, G7 members are moving closer to Mr. Trump’...
Selective Deportation; G-7 Outcomes; U.S. Has the Meat
Selective Deportation The New York Times credited USDA Secretary Brooke Rolins with persuading President Trump to leave undocumented workers in agriculture alone. It’s bad enough that the President’s most reliable voting block is also the most threatened by retaliatory tariffs, conc...
Immigration and Trade: Update on the Chaos
After ICE raids of businesses – with more to come according to Tom Homan – President Trump admitted that his strict immigration policies are negatively impacting at least the farming and hotel sectors. A recent television news story showed empty radish fields in California devoid of...
Outclassed; Unifying Food Safety; Inflation’s Real Issue
Outclassed In a nearly five-hour hearing before the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins proved again that she is one of the most politically astute of President Trump’s Cabinet members. She was adept at responding to a wide range of questions, nearly all of the...
Calm Amidst Upheaval; Unilateral Impacts; Ethanol’s Rise
Calm Amidst Upheaval Data or surveys about attitudes or opinions are said to be “soft” data since they are emotive based and less reliable. Soft data in recent months had been signaling angst about the U.S. economy and Mr. Trump’s handling of it. Yet, hard data has reflected g...
New Meat Giant Created in Brazil; Most of Revenue from U.S.
While the MAHA report from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. still cites consolidation in the meat packing sector, Brazil’s competition regulator, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE), has approved a merger of two major Brazilian meat processors,...
Trade Negotiations Ramp Up; CAP Rush; Europe’s Military and Agriculture
Trade Negotiations Ramp Up The big story involves U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators meeting in London this week. Discussions lasted three hours today and resume tomorrow but no one sees agriculture being involved in the talks. Instead, the focus is on export controls where Beijing is limiting...
USDA Trade Estimates Report Comes Under Scrutiny
USDA’s delay of its quarterly agricultural trade report, and exclusion of its typical explanatory text, raised concerns because the moves raised questions about the objectivity of the data. The bottom line is that the trade is uneasy about USDA statistics now. USDA data is considered a go...
Beyond the Report Headlines: Measuring Trump’s Effects
The BLS released the employment report this morning indicating that the U.S. added 139,000 jobs in May, down slightly from April’s revised 147,000, but slightly above pre-report forecasts of 126,000. However, payrolls were revised downward an unusually large 95,000 for the prior two month...
Agriculture Front and Center; Confounding Farmers; Miscellaneous Fun; Farm Bill Fight; Feeding Gaza
Agriculture Front and Center It is notable that all the examples provided by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt of high foreign tariffs involved agricultural products. Her specific examples included, “50 percent from the European Union on American dairy, you have a 700 percent t...
Getting Tough; Abundance Debate
Getting Tough It isn’t just the U.S. judicial system offering up hurdles to President Trump’s trade war. It has been noted that different countries have taken different approaches in responding to the tariff war. Smaller southwest and southeast Asian countries have generally b...
Trade Deadline Extended, Threats Sharpened; African Moves; WTO Reforms
Trade Deadline Extended, Threats Sharpened President Trump announced that the 9 July deadline for trade agreements with the U.S. to avoid reciprocal tariffs will be extended to 1 August. Eighteen countries are being targeted for trade negotiations, and a smaller subset received letters today on...
Skinny Farm Bill Left to Finish
President Trump said yesterday that the U.S. is nearing several new trade deals and that letters will be sent to trading partners by 9 July warning of increased tariffs set to take effect on 1 August. That announcement effectively extends the administration’s trade deadline from this week...
U.S. July Fourth Holiday
Please note that Ag Perspectives will not be published tomorrow, Friday, 4 July in observance of the Fourth of July holiday in the U.S. We will resume our normal report schedule on Monday 7 July...
Vietnam Deal; EU Green Targets
Vietnam Deal As the 9 July deadline approaches, a second trade deal was announced by President Trump. He says the U.S. will apply a 20 percent tariff on imports from Vietnam (versus 46 percent reciprocal), and 40 percent if the product was transshipped. The duty could vary based on domestic con...
Prop 12 Lives, Long Live Prop 12; Power of Ag; Trump Power
Prop 12 Lives, Long Live Prop 12 Delineating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution from the rights of the states has long been a legal fight in the U.S. Thus, it was notable last night when the U.S. Senate voted 99-1 to remove language from the Big Beautiful Bill that would have restric...
Un-Trade Agreements; Ag in Big Beautiful Bill; CAP Controversy
Un-Trade Agreements It did not take long for Canadian officials to reverse their digital services tax after President Trump threatened to end trade negotiations. Canada is second only to Mexico in terms of trade dependence on the U.S. Many Canadian producers are already hurting from trade sanct...
Crop Life America Registers Strong Comments on MAHA Strategy
In a 12-page letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Crop Life America (CLA) outlined a number of issues for the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) strategy on pesticides to further “our shared goals of promoting children’s health and ensuring that pesticide regulatory...
Trade Negotiation Update; Miscellaneous
Trade Negotiation Update There were no shortages of eye-opening news reports this week and the notable one on trade late today was President Trump’s announcement that he is ending trade negotiations with Canada. Ottawa’s decision to impose a retroactive digital services tax on Ameri...
Input Costs Forecast to Rise, Led by Fertilizer
After rising sharply in 2022, input costs remain stubbornly high yet today. At the same time, the prices received for major crops like corn, soybeans and wheat have fallen by as much as 30 percent over the same period. In response to these economic headwinds, Congress stepped up thr...
Ignoring Margins; Trump Tariff Win
Ignoring Margins The U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights held a hearing yesterday on, Reducing Regulatory Burdens to Unlock Innovation and Spur New Entry and the meat packing industry was front and center. UC-Berkely Senior Fellow Doha Mekki co...
Trade Agreements Challenged; No Non-reciprocals; Miniature Meat Plant
Trade Agreements Challenged The 9 July deadline for countries to reach individual trade agreements with the U.S. is fast approaching and while the Trump Administration says negotiations are progressing, there are some high hurdles. Protectionists from India to Europe are pressuring their policy...
U.S. Juneteenth Holiday
The CBOT/CME markets and our offices will be closed tomorrow, Thursday, 19 June in observance of the U.S. Juneteenth holiday. Please note that the next Ag Perspectives will be published on Friday, 20 June. ...
One Big Beautiful Bill Unveiled in the Senate
The Senate Finance Committee and its chairman Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) have unveiled their tax bill as part of budget reconciliation to extend the 2017 Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. According to the Committee, the bill … prevents a more-than $4 trillion tax hike on American families a...
G7 Disappointments; Deregulation and Consolidation
G7 Disappointments The Israeli-Iran war stole the thunder of the G7 meeting in Canada and while President Trump said ahead of the conference that he hoped to achieve trade deals, only the UK’s Keir Starmer has managed an agreement. However, G7 members are moving closer to Mr. Trump’...
Selective Deportation; G-7 Outcomes; U.S. Has the Meat
Selective Deportation The New York Times credited USDA Secretary Brooke Rolins with persuading President Trump to leave undocumented workers in agriculture alone. It’s bad enough that the President’s most reliable voting block is also the most threatened by retaliatory tariffs, conc...
Immigration and Trade: Update on the Chaos
After ICE raids of businesses – with more to come according to Tom Homan – President Trump admitted that his strict immigration policies are negatively impacting at least the farming and hotel sectors. A recent television news story showed empty radish fields in California devoid of...
Outclassed; Unifying Food Safety; Inflation’s Real Issue
Outclassed In a nearly five-hour hearing before the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins proved again that she is one of the most politically astute of President Trump’s Cabinet members. She was adept at responding to a wide range of questions, nearly all of the...
Calm Amidst Upheaval; Unilateral Impacts; Ethanol’s Rise
Calm Amidst Upheaval Data or surveys about attitudes or opinions are said to be “soft” data since they are emotive based and less reliable. Soft data in recent months had been signaling angst about the U.S. economy and Mr. Trump’s handling of it. Yet, hard data has reflected g...
New Meat Giant Created in Brazil; Most of Revenue from U.S.
While the MAHA report from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. still cites consolidation in the meat packing sector, Brazil’s competition regulator, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE), has approved a merger of two major Brazilian meat processors,...
Trade Negotiations Ramp Up; CAP Rush; Europe’s Military and Agriculture
Trade Negotiations Ramp Up The big story involves U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators meeting in London this week. Discussions lasted three hours today and resume tomorrow but no one sees agriculture being involved in the talks. Instead, the focus is on export controls where Beijing is limiting...
USDA Trade Estimates Report Comes Under Scrutiny
USDA’s delay of its quarterly agricultural trade report, and exclusion of its typical explanatory text, raised concerns because the moves raised questions about the objectivity of the data. The bottom line is that the trade is uneasy about USDA statistics now. USDA data is considered a go...
Beyond the Report Headlines: Measuring Trump’s Effects
The BLS released the employment report this morning indicating that the U.S. added 139,000 jobs in May, down slightly from April’s revised 147,000, but slightly above pre-report forecasts of 126,000. However, payrolls were revised downward an unusually large 95,000 for the prior two month...
Agriculture Front and Center; Confounding Farmers; Miscellaneous Fun; Farm Bill Fight; Feeding Gaza
Agriculture Front and Center It is notable that all the examples provided by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt of high foreign tariffs involved agricultural products. Her specific examples included, “50 percent from the European Union on American dairy, you have a 700 percent t...
Getting Tough; Abundance Debate
Getting Tough It isn’t just the U.S. judicial system offering up hurdles to President Trump’s trade war. It has been noted that different countries have taken different approaches in responding to the tariff war. Smaller southwest and southeast Asian countries have generally b...