It is all faintly ridiculous. In a world where whole economies are collapsing, where world leaders are debating ways to create a more stable global financial environment and where a new currency in the world's largest trading bloc is struggling to gain credibility, the world's two most powerful trading powers - the US and the EU - are engaged in a war of words over bananas.

While the outcome may be important to Fyffes and to certain exporters facing punitive tariffs in the US, the core issue is of only marginal economic interest to either of the groups concerned.

With disputes brewing at the newly-established World Trade Organisation over genetically modified organisms and hormone-fed beef, the news that an issue of such a peripheral nature is threatening its cohesion bodes ill for the future of the WTO and for the idea of tackling trade disputes outside the realm of narrow political self-interest.