Atlantic Risks EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovkis is a serious and competent politician. He is now signaling that reaching a conceptual deal with the U.S. on the trade in steel and aluminum is stalled and without prospect. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration appears unable to make concessions on tariff rate quotas adversely impacting imports from the EU. This is highly risky to U.S. agriculture since its products are a key focus for retaliation by Brussels if this issue continues unresolved. Separately, the Commissioner appears more helpful of reaching a transatlantic agreement on critical minerals. Mixed Reviews of Asks Major U.S. agricultural groups presented a series of policy requests to the President’s Export Counc...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.