Chinese counterfeiters threaten designer jeans brand abroad and at home Last month, U.S. Customs & Border Protection announced that a joint operation of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Los Angeles Police Department had seized a container load of...
What a Difference a Trade War Can Make
Miami Herald taps Datamyne to gauge impact of Colombia-Venezuela feud The Miami Herald’s Jim Wyss writes today about the likelihood that Venezuela and Colombia can end the rift that’s caused commerce between the erstwhile trading partners to tumble 70%. As Wyss notes,...
Balancing Act
Louisiana lobbies for monitoring and marketing its seafood Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) biologists are reported to be collecting thousands of specimens of crab, shrimp and finfish in the waters east of the Mississippi Delta for Food and Drug...
Tug of War over PotashCorp
BHP bid signals realignment in global N-P-K sector It’s a pretty safe bet: As the world’s population increases, so too will demand for food. That makes fertilizer – and its three primary ingredients nitrogen (N), phosphate (phosphorus or P) and potash (potassium or K)...
From Few to Many
Approximately 80% of world potash is traded across borders Every farmer needs it, but there are few producers of potash, one of the three essential components of fertilizer (the other two are nitrogen and phosphate). According to Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc.,...
Sugar Rush
A U.S. federal court ruling is a global market changer Global sugar supplies were already tightening because of the Russian drought, Pakistan’s floods, and weather delays at the ports of top exporter Brazil, when a potentially huge hit to U.S. stocks emerged from the...
Lower Tariffs, Lift Exports
Cutting the cost of imported inputs should help U.S. producers compete on price “Before U.S. companies are exporters, they are producers. And as producers of goods, they are consumers of capital equipment, raw materials, and other industrial inputs and components....
Stop Thief!
Most cargo thefts occur in transit By Bill Armbruster What’s the annual cost of cargo theft in the U.S.? Estimates range from less than $2 billion to $30 billion. There are several reasons for that huge disparity. They include the lack of a national database and the...
Ripple Effect
The oil spill continues to roil the Gulf ecosystem and economy The idea was to push the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill back from coastal areas with torrents of fresh water by opening several Mississippi River diversions. Unfortunately, it appears that the...
15 Years After …
… diplomatic ties set the stage for U.S.-Vietnam trade partnership Earlier this week, the U.S. and Vietnam marked the 15th anniversary of the diplomatic ties that normalized relations between the countries and set the stage for 2001’s Bilateral Trade Agreement...