The dispute between the United States and EU over bananas has been going on since 1992, when the Europeans established a quota system limiting imports from Latin America. The policy was designed to provide access to the European market for bananas grown in former European colonies in Africa and the Caribbean. Even with quotas, Latin American banana producers have 60 percent of the European market while Caribbean producers have just 8 percent. The banana-producing regions of both Latin America and the Caribbean are deeply impoverished. However unlike the Caribbean, where individual farmers produce most bananas, Latin American production takes place for the most part on giant corporate plantations under conditions of brutal exploitation.
Workers live in shacks without basic amenities.
Chiquita has vigorously opposed unionization efforts on its plantations in Central America and was cited for human rights violations in a report published in the Cincinnati Inquirer , though the story was later retracted under pressure from Chiquita. Governments of banana-producing countries have lined up with Europe or America in the dispute based on economic spheres of influence. Last year the United States won a ruling from the WTO ordering the EU to dismantle rules favoring Caribbean and African banana producers. The Europeans altered their rules, but not to the satisfaction of the Clinton administration, which in November threatened to impose sanctions. The WSWS invites your comments.