Top academic publisher, New York-based Palgrave Macmillan, has just put into print Ambassador Dr Richard Bernal’s new book, his fifth, entitled Corporate versus National Interest in US Trade Policy: Chiquita and Caribbean Bananas.

The book provides a detailed and insightful account of the World Trade Organization (WTO)-US-European Union (EU) banana dispute which ended when the WTO ruled that the EU banana regime should be dismantled.

It documents and explains how banana giant Chiquita succeeded in having the Bill Clinton Administration pursue a trade policy of forcing the EU to dismantle its preferential banana import regime for exports from small, English-speaking Caribbean countries.

The export of bananas was critically important to the social stability and economic viability of these countries and that was in the national security interest of the United States. So Chiquita’s success resulted in a US trade policy that was detrimental to US national security interest in the Caribbean.

Bernal, recently retired as pro-vice chancellor for global affairs at The University of the West Indies, and was an active participant in the process of Caribbean governments’ advocacy to persuade the US not to pressure the EU to cancel the banana regime, without which they could not export bananas.

In writing the book, Bernal draws on his scholarly and diplomatic skills to provide a first-hand account of the experience of the events in which he participated while serving as Jamaica’s ambassador to the US and as director general of Caricom’s Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery.

Bernal’s previous books include Globalisation, Trade and Economic Development The CARIFORM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Dragon in the Caribbean. China’s Global Re-Positioning Challenges and Opportunities for the Caribbean (Ian Randle Publishers, 2016); The Influence of Small States on Superpowers: Jamaica and US Foreign Policy (University of the West Indies Press, 2017) and with Professor Henry Lowe, Medical and Wellness Tourism: The Potential for Jamaica (Ian Randle Publishers, 2019).

Ambassador Bernal, a professional economist with over 40 years of experience, was educated at The University of the West Indies, University of Pennsylvania, New School for Social Research and the School for Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. He holds BSc, MA, PhD (economics), and MIPP (international public policy) degrees.

The book, which is available in hard cover and on Kindle, is not yet available in Jamaica but can be sourced from Amazon. A launch will be announced at a later date, Dr Bernal said.