Trading punches
Trade relations between the EU and the US have rarely been so bad. They are embroiled in battles between hormone-treated beef and bananas. The EU has lost both cases in the World Trade Organisation's rulings but has refused to implement them. Most of the beef in France comes from Scotland.
But even as the rich squabble the poorer traders in the world are finding the going difficult. Their integration into the global economy was seen as a route to fast growth through export expansion and inflow of private foreign capital. But the collapse of the Asian tigers has revealed the vulnerability of even the strongest developing economies to the forces of globalisation. It makes matters worse when countries of the North use trade as a weapon against third world nations. In 1996 the US imposed a ban on import of shrimp products from India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Thailand. In the early 1990s, the US imposed a ban on tuna harvested in Mexico, Venezuela and Vanuatu in South Pacific because dolphins were killed during tuna fishing. Needless to say none of these countries can hope to achieve anything by imposing trade sanctions against USA.