Politicians try all kinds of ways to benefit special interests, particularly domestic ones. Nationalism and localism are common and tend to distort trade. The concern is that this course ultimately corrodes the international competitiveness of those it favors. Lighthizer Reactions Robert Lighthizer is Donald Trump’s pick to be the next U.S. Trade Representative, an appointment that was met with mixed reviews in the Washington trade community. So-called free traders are aghast, viewing his work on behalf of steel manufacturers as an effort to manage the market or, more derisively, conduct “industrial planning.” As one Japanese headlined blared, “Trump cements protectionist stance with trade rep pick.” Others who worked with him in the 1980...
What You Need to Know Today: A third U.S. border crossing (Columbus, New Mexico) has reopened to Mexican cattle imports following nearly two years of restrictions related to New World screwworm. The reopening could gradually improve feeder cattle availability, although more than 60 confi...
Yesterday, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) released a new report of negotiated cash purchases of cattle under the mandatory price report. The report included Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. The goal of the report was to solve the confidentiality issues e...
Key Takeaways: U.S. soybean crushing began in 1911 and saw its most rapid expansion during the 1930s amid the broader agricultural and technology revolutions of the time. After peaking in the early 2000s, the soybean crushing industry went through a downturn as poor crush margins forced...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.