Banana Trade Between The European Union And The Eastern Caribbean

In the year 1807, Thomas Jefferson created an embargo in order to stop conflict between France and Great Britain. This embargo was a complete stop to trade from, and to foreign countries. According to the text, “Under the Embargo of 1807, no foreign ships could enter U.S ports, and no American ships could leave, expect to trade at other U.S ports”(Hart et al. 165). However, cotton textiles and other products were imported from Great Britain, and now because of the embargo the United States do not have any of these products. In order to solve this issue, “American businesspeople quickly began to manufacture cotton textiles to replace British imports”(Schug et al. 142-145). Economic incentives such as new opportunities, influenced women in the

John Soluri 's Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States, (Which for spatial and repetitive purposes, I will refer to as Banana Cultures for the remainder of the paper), introduces the reader to a world of corporate greed, consumption, and environmental change using the history of the common, everyday fruit, the banana. He explores the various political occurrences, health problems, and changes in mass media through the rise of the consumption of the banana in the United States, and around the globe.

The “Colombian Exchange” refers to the trade between the Americans and Europeans. This trade consisted of multiple commodities including plants, food, and agriculture. Europe in search of more land in which to expand their territory discovered the Americas. The European’s brought corn, chili, pumpkins, tomatoes, and potatoes back to Europe, as well as sugar and tobacco for the more prestigious class (Angel, 2012). This added much diversity to the European diet; their primary source of nutrition was grain (rye, wheat, oats, and barley) (Angel, 2012).

Langley. Langley wrote several books on Latin American history and American interactions including The United States and the Caribbean, 1900–1970 and The Banana Wars: An Inner History of American Empire, 1900-1934. His book on the Banana Wars encompasses the United States tropical empire that overtook the western hemisphere spanning both of the Roosevelt presidencies. The term was popularized through this writing which portrayed the United States as a police force that was sent to reconcile warring tropical countries, lawless societies and corrupt politicians, establishing a reign over tropical trade.

The sugar trade was driven by its easy accessibility of slaves, land, and the sugar itself. Due to these characteristics the sugar trade flourished greatly through much of the world.

One of the United States most important foreign trading partners was Cuba. The Cuban and the US economy had been intertwined for nearly a decade before the turn of the 20th century with American invests of $50 million in the Cuban economy. Americans owned the most valuable land in Cuba, which were the sugar plantations. More than 90% of Cuba’s sugar was exported to the United States7. Most of the imports to Cuba and the surrounding islands came from the US. If the Cuban market closed the US would lose not only its $50 million in investments, but also millions in lost revenue from not being able to trade with Cuba.

"Agriculture is undoubtedly the most important activity for the majority of the world’s poor, and at the same time it is the most protected sector in industrial countries." Agriculture continues to play an important role throughout the world, while in recent years, farmers have been negatively and positively affected by the trade agreements established by both the WTO and Fair Trade system; specifically the banana and coffee farmers. The government's role was to liberalize trade by reducing tariffs and they initiated this by introducing GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs). This was an agreement between countries that slowly expanded to include countries. Agricultural Trade was left out of the GATT due to the U.S. and European Union "banana war." This is a trade dispute between the US and EU on how the bananas are sourced and imported, even though neither one of these countries are the banana growers. The GATT was later re-established as the WTO (World Trade Organization). As Weis stated, The WTO's Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) came into effect in 1995 and constitutes a major landmark in the development of the global food economy as its set in place, for the first time, multilateral rules restricting the sovereignty of governments to establish their own agricultural policies. Their main focus was to establish a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system. Their objective is to entrench and extend the rights of transnational capital in trade and

The United States took interest in Latin America for economic and political reasons. The banana appears to be a distinct reason as to why the United States went over to Latin America according to Dan Koepple’s

The Ottoman Empires blockage of the once popular trade route to the east, led to the exploration of the America’s. In the late 15th century, with the European’s goal to find a new trading route, the Portuguese, with their strong maritime power, were the first to venture out. Not only was the establishment of a new trade route crucial, but so was the discovery of resources to exploit for European gain. Land empires formed, bringing about the enslavement of native populations, and control of production and labor. No more was this evident than in the Caribbean Islands. Small but crucial assets to Europe, why did the Caribbean islands have such a big impact on the slave trade? Many European countries had colonized several regions in North and South America, yet there was something about the Caribbean’s that made them indispensable to their respective economies. The politics in Europe, the Caribbean’s fertile soil, and its demographics were key factors in the Caribbean’s importance. All three factors were essential in the Caribbean becoming a staple in the slave trade.

n October 19th 1960, the United States of America implemented an embargo on American exports to Cuba. This undertaking was in response to the Cuban state nationalizing American owned property without any compensation. The embargo, which included just about all imports, is one example of US-Cuban relations that have been poor ever since the overthrow of the Batista regime (Haufbauer et al). In recent years, trade sanctions have finally began to open up and in 2000 the United States passed the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act which allows for food and agricultural products to be exported to Cuba (Engage Cuba Coalition). However, despite this act opening up the market for food and agricultural products the Trade Sanctions Reform

Moreover, the nations of Central America came to be known as Banana Republics, countries such as Honduras and Nicaragua, Panama, and Colombia. Bananas were marketed heavily in the United States as a result. Prior to the United Fruit Companies’ stronghold in Central America, the United States had not really indulged in the yellow fruit, which was once on the brink of extinction, the most commonly eaten fruit were apples and grapes. This was the heyday of the United States upturn in the Western hemisphere, because of World War 2, “U.S investment in the region increased fivefold, consolidating its preeminent position in the economies of the other Americas. The prominence of U.S enterprises in the region meant that economic nationalism would be conflated with anti-Americanism and demands for reform with threats to U.S interests.”(Winn, p. 459). Additionally, “The United Fruit Company owned more than a million acres of Banana fields in Central America; it had a bigger annual budget than any nation in the region; its fleet of eighty-five ships carried out most of the region’s outside trade; it owned fourteen hundred miles of rail, including the largest line between Mexico and Panama.” (Gonzalez, p.135) Ubico, allowing the United Fruit Company to avoid taxes and tariffs that would undoubtedly help those

It is commonly believed that free trade between nations is a mutually beneficial arrangement for all parties involved; indeed, this is held to be an absolute truth. Though free trade is undoubtedly the most effective form of commerce between countries from a purely economic standpoint, increasingly we find that our so-called "free trade agreements" are horribly unbalanced. Indicative of these fiascoes is the North American

Since the mid-20th century, countries have progressively reduced barriers, subsidies to domestic industries and diverse restrictions on international commerce in order to promote specialization and greater efficiency in production. In theory, free trade allows nations to focus on their main comparative advantages and profit from cooperation and voluntary trade. This strategy is usually reinforced by treaties between two or more countries where commerce of goods and services can be handled across their common borders, without tariffs and other trade obstacles. As a key component of regional integration in the Americas, CAFTA-DR is one important example of this economic ideology.

According to Froman (2014) trade is the best way to strengthen the United States economy and prosper on a global level. It argues that the “strategic importance of trade” is important and continues to grow. Froman (2014) backs up his argument by explaining the role that trade has played in U.S. history, such as as trade’s ability to alliances and create relationships with other countries. In the article, Froman (2014) uses the example “in the wake of World War II, when the United States provided more access to Western European countries and Japan than it received from them, in an attempt to speed their reconstruction and solidify their integration into an open, rules-based international order” (p.1).

In 1994, the leaders of the thirty-four democratic countries of the Western Hemisphere launched the process of creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA will be established by 2010 with the aim of gradually eradicating barriers to trade and investment in the region. The final characteristics of the FTAA will be determined through negotiations by government officials from the thirty-four participating countries. The trade issues that are presently under discussion are: market access; investment; services; government procurement; dispute settlement; agriculture; intellectual property; antidumping, subsidies and countervailing duties; and competition policy. Guiding principles for these negotiations