It turns out that the 2009 agreement on tariff reduction was only the beginning of the end of the banana wars. A number of legal steps were required before a World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement could be signed, including the introduction of EU legislation and the separate ratification of the deal by individual countries. The definitive end of the banana wars was announced when the European Union and 10 Latin American countries signed an agreement to formally end eight separate WTO cases. Malcolm Borthwick, a business reporter with BBC News, analyses the impact of the end of the trade war.
