SPS Litmus in TPP: U.S. aggies are pressing USTR to put an enforceability provision in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) for the WTO-plus sanitary and phytosanitay (SPS) provisions being added to the agreement. However, other agencies (e.g. U.S. FDA) are balking at having their regulatory provisions subjected to the same kind of enforceability clause. Consequently, USTR reportedly will not introduce the concept at the latest round of TPP negotiations getting underway today in Singapore. USTR also will abstain from offering a rapid response option for when an SPS requirement is deemed unjustified. The SPS provisions in TPP will create a baseline for the transatlantic negotiations. Any agreement with Europe that lacks a WTO-plus dispute s...
What You Need to Know Today: Cattle futures extended their sharp selloff Friday as weakening cash cattle prices, deteriorating feedlot profitability, and reduced packer demand continued to weigh on the market. The inability of futures to sustain a rally following last week's bullish Cattle on...
As predicted, the Federal Reserve held rates steady at the last meeting before the midterm elections, likely in part because of the election (see WPI 19 October and 22 September). The decision comes at the tail end of a midterm election cycle that has been marked by the two parties campaigning...
Key Takeaways: The tariff burden rose sharply in 2025 and 2026: the effective rate on imports in HTS Chapters 1–24 increased from 1.53 percent in 2024 to 6.11 percent in 2025, before averaging 5.68 percent in January–August 2026. Headline rates tell only part of the story: exemptio...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.