Trade Policy Confusion In its annual report to Congress yesterday on trade relations with China, USTR asserted that, “China has a poor record when it comes to complying with WTO rules” and suggested the Biden Administration is looking for a new strategy to address the Middle Kingdom’s unfair trade practices. As noted by others, the report offered no details on a new plan and, in the meantime, the U.S. will continue to talk to China and to allies. If China is not complying with the WTO, then the strategy ought to be filing dispute settlement cases. More accurate is to say that the WTO is ill-equipped to address state-led economies. Donald Trump understood this conundrum and took a more kinetic approach to China. Like Puti...
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
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.