Thread by @Jim_Cornelius

Hello @DanielJHannan

This might surprise you and your followers, but if that tariff was removed the first to complain about it would be the former colonial nations of the Commonwealth in the Caribbean and West Africa.

Let me explain it for you:

All Bananas from ACP countries on EBA or EPA are on a 0% tariff.

In the Caribbean that's:

Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Dominican Rep, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, Suriname, Trinidad & Tobago,St Vincent & the Grenadines.

In Africa that includes the major banana producing nations of Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon.

All bananas from these countries come in tariff free and quota free.

This table shows the main African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) suppliers:

ec.europa.eu/agriculture/si…

But a larger supply comes from Latin American countries.

There's a tariff on these.

The former British and French colonies of the ACP group receive the benefit of preferential access to EU markets over the Latin American producers listed here.

ec.europa.eu/agriculture/si…

Production of bananas in those Latin American countries is dominated by 3 American-based multinationals. Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita.

In 2008 they were fined over €60m by the EU for operating a cartel, but that's beside the point, back to tariffs.

coha.org/the-wild-bunch…

The standard rate for 3rd countries is €117/tonne (not €114) but there's a preferential rate for the countries shown, as follows (per tonne)

Ecuador: €90
Columbia: €89
Costa Rica: €89
Panama: €89
Peru: €89
Guatemala: €89
Mexico: €70

Look at:

trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/trade-tariff/c… …

At €90 Euros per tonne that works out at €0.09 per kilo. Assuming you get 6 bananas per kilo (avg 166g per banana) that's €0.015 per banana.

So the amount of tariff on the banana David Miliband is holding is about 1.3p, unless it's from an ACP country in which case it’s nil.

Tariffs on Latin American bananas protected banana producers in former British & French colonies. But in a trade dispute with US-backed Latin Americans the ACP preferences were deemed illegal by the WTO. So the tariffs are undergoing a phased reduction.

europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headli…

Due to the preferences received by ACP countries being eroded by lowering tariffs on Latin American producers after the WTO ruling, financial support has been offered to Caribbean and African producers in the form of the Banana Accompanying Measures (BAM) ec.europa.eu/europeaid/node…

Here's a video about some of the BAM measures in St. Lucia.

So Daniel, in your original tweet you asked:

"Even if you're not a free trader, what British industry do you think that helps?"

Well, as you will hopefully now recognise, it actually helps banana producers in commonwealth countries in the Caribbean and Africa.

Hope this helps.

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by @StevePeers view original on Twitter

Here is a breakdown of the source of bananas in UK shops. Data from 2015.

44% are tariff free.

us2.campaign-archive.com/?u=e9cdc4f4e0d…

By the way.

It’s odd that I should have to remind @DanielJHannan of any of this as he’s been an MEP since 1999, and it’s during his tenure that the Banana trade wars, the WTO ruling and the introduction of BAM measures all took place.

Apparently he’s keen on Commonwealth trade.