USMCA Push U.S. Congressional consideration of the USMCA agreement will get a heavy push from its supporters over the next few weeks. The earlier goal was to get approval in September but that has now been pushed to October with November even more likely. Opponents are suggesting the legislation be help up until 2020, knowing that trade agreements are more difficult to pass in election years. Major stumbling blocks remain enforcement and the environment, with some concern also expressed over pharmaceuticals. The challenge is finding language sufficient to assuage critics without reopening the agreement itself. Still, the politics are not as large a hurdle as might be expected since it is at least more favorable to organized labor than the...
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...
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.