Tariff Tuesday As usual, there is some agreement with Donald Trump on his goal, in this case – improved terms of trade for a country running a perpetual trillion-dollar trade deficit. But then his negotiating tactic is so over-the-top kinetic that it throws the baby out with the bath water. Or as Neil Dutta of Renaissance Macro Research frames it, “He finally shot the hostage.” Even the President’s description of the problems and solutions are convoluted. The tariffs are being applied because other countries failed to stem the flow of illegal drugs or immigrants into the U.S., but if you bring in business investment you may avoid the tariffs. His America First Trade Policy released yesterday says it will reduce...
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.