Courtesy of commons.wikipedia.org
Bananas: they’re a good source of potassium, taste delicious with ice cream, and were one of Elvis’ favorite fruits. But they’re also a source of great dispute.
No, we’re not talking about whether bananas are good with peanut butter (they are). We’re talking about trade war!
It seems there has been a food fight between banana-producing Latin America and banana-eating Europe.
First a little history…
When European colonialism ended last century, Europe decided to give the Caribbean, Africa, and the Pacific (a.k.a. the APC countries) some help to kickstart their delicate economies. This included buying hefty amounts of bananas from APC countries.
In the 1990’s, Europe took another step. They started taxing other competing banana producing areas like Latin America.
People in Latin America have complained for a long time that this was unfair. The World Bank even declared these banana tariffs illegal.
This week, the European Union decided to lower the offending tariffs on banana imports. Good news, right?
Well, it depends on who you are. For Latin America, it’s great news!
However our friends in the ACP countries are less happy. They now expect to lose money on the deal.
A compensation package for those countries is currently being negotiated, but it will take time and will be complicated.
As a result, banana prices might go down by 12%. What does that mean? More banana splits, of course!
