Notable Viewpoints A Bloomberg session today on saving global trade brought some interesting viewpoints from former trade officials as well as China topic experts. Beijing found Donald Trump difficult to figure out until they concluded that he is just transactional and it was simply a matter of naming a large enough price (Phase One). But then he turned unpredictable again by closing China’s consulate in Houston. White House aides are clearly at odds with one another over China. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is backed by Wall Street in wanting a deal with Beijing, whereas Peter Navarro wants a divorce. Mr. Trump wants to help the blue-collar workers he heard on the campaign trail who say China cost them their jobs, but ulti...
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
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.