Bananas

This chapter analyzes one of the two instances in which enforcement tariffs were imposed: the EU’s banana trade regime (BTR). The analysis charts the origins of the policy through the EU’s efforts to protect it under multilateral trade rules before focusing on how the EU responded once it lost the complaint brought by the United States and Latin American banana producers. The EU responded in three acts. Only the second act has attracted much scholarly attention, which has led to some questionable conclusions about the impact of tariffs. The chapter exploits variation in conditions and outcomes over the three acts. Although adversely affected exporters lobbied for policy change during the second act, they were absent in the other two when changes were also adopted. In addition, there is no indication that their efforts affected the preferences of policy makers during the second act. Policy makers struggled to balance advancing the EU’s ambitious agenda in the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks with its obligations to domestic and African and Caribbean banana producers. The chapter argues that the EU’s policy reforms became more radical as the preferences of EU policy makers regarding the treatment of African and Caribbean producers changed for reasons unrelated to the dispute.