Industrial Policy is Back At Davos, USTR Kathrine Tai pitched her “worker-centric” trade policy while other American representatives defended new EV subsidies. Europe made its pitch for strategic autonomy and is now working on its own new subsidy plans. Agricultural subsidies are back in vogue as well as EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski told European Parliament members that efforts to control food inflation was maxed out and perhaps the solution is to increase Common Agricultural policy spending in the 2028-2034 budget period. But it is going to be hard to increase food production and thus lower inflation if the tools of production are removed. Pesticides were already going to be cut and now the European...
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.