Banana crisis and coca appeal

摘要

Rarely has the US -when out in the countryside - so lost sight of the wood for the trees. Its decision to go into battle at the World Trade Organization to deprive the small Caribbean banana producers of their protected European market is one it willcome to rue. In the exaggerated name of free trade, but choosing the easiest and most vulnerable of targets, it is setting itself up for social and economic decline, and thus, chaos in its own backyard. Or, if that is to be averted, the development of cocoa as a substitute crop rather nearer home than Peru's Rio Huallica valley.