Trouble Before the War Ohio State University Professor Ian Sheldon laments that even if the U.S. and China reach a trade agreement, it will take many years to undo the damage from the trade war. He is correct, but it is also true that China was doing American agriculture fewer favors before the trade war. U.S. sales of both bulk commodities and intermediately-processed foods were on a declining trend prior to its beginning. Sales of consumer-ready products were trending up but constituted the smallest portion of U.S. agricultural exports to the Middle Kingdom (see graph below). China is not interested in economic optimization via comparative advantage in agriculture. Separately, Chinese President Xi Jinping is reportedly pushing a party r...
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
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.