The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and National Cattlemen’s Beef Assn (NCBA) are controlled by multinational and/or foreign owned meat processing companies.  Those companies have an interest in unlimited imports of cattle and hogs, regardless of safety, to depress the U.S. market prices.  They are front groups claiming to represent…

Reposted from Farm Futures ****** USTR General Counsel Explains Appeal of COOL to WTO Staff | March 26, 2012 |Farm Futures The U.S. government announced it is appealing the World Trade Organization’s decision on the Country of Origin Labeling law. U.S. Trade Representative General Counsel Tim Reif says this appeal…

Reposted from Pork Network ****** U.S. to appeal COOL ruling Rick Jordahl | March 23, 2012 | Pork Network The office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) will appeal a World Trade Organization ruling against the U.S. mandatory country-of-origin-labeling law (COOL), according to USTR General Counsel Tim Reif. The…

Press release from R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America ***** For Immediate Release                                                                                       Contact: R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard March 23, 2012                                                                                          Phone: 406-252-2516; [email protected] R-CALF USA Applauds U.S. Appeal of WTO’s Adverse COOL Ruling Billings, Mont. – Today is the deadline the World Trade Organization (WTO) imposed on the United…

Reposted from Inside US-China Trade ***** CPA Wants New Trade Policy Focus On Reciprocity, SOE Exclusions Scott Otteman  |  Inside US-China Trade  |  March 21, 2012 A coalition of import-sensitive industries, farm groups and unions is crafting a set of trade policy principles that places greater emphasis on achieving reciprocity…

Reposted from The Detroit News ****** Members of Congress urge Obama to confront China over trade violations David Shepardson | March 16, 2012 | The Detroit News Nearly 200 members of Congress called on the Obama administration Friday to crack down on China’s “unfair practices in the auto parts sector.”…

Beliefs are handy, because they relieve your brain of further work. Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, the China business and finance editor at The Economist, writes that currency manipulation and unfair trade practices aren’t that important. Because… well just because.  I looked hard for data in his written piece, but apparently data…

Reposted from The Washington Post ***** Outsourcing causes fictional productivity gains Peter Whoriskey  |  The Washington Post  |  March 20, 201 During the 2000s, as U.S. manufacturing was transformed by devastating job losses, prominent economists and presidential advisers offered comforting words. The paring of the manufacturing workforce, which shrank by a third over…

Reposted from Manufacturing and Technology News-this article features a company called Underwater Kinetics, a CPA Company Member ***** Country-Of-Origin Labels Could Change Consumer Behavior And Revive U.S. Manufacturing Richard McCormack  |  Manufacturing and Technology News  |  March 16, 2012 A successful manufacturing entrepreneur from San Diego has proposed a means…

Reposted from Jeff Ferry’s blog: Thoughts on marketing, economics, & technology My article Global Optical Manufacturing Rebalances is now out in this month’s OPN Magazine. (The full report is here.) Global Optical Manufacturing Rebalances looks at the migration of virtually the whole of US optical component manufacture to Asia in…