‘Banana republic’: a label that every country wants to avoid
When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for new elections aimed at ending the current government in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took umbrage. On CNN last Sunday, Netanyahu called Schumer’s comments about elections “totally inappropriate," adding, “That’s something the Israeli public does on its own. We are not a banana republic." Netanyahu found a receptive ear among Senate Republicans, whom he addressed in a virtual closed-door speech on Wednesday.
Sen. Ted Cruz reiterated afterward that Schumer “had the arrogance and audacity to seek to instruct another nation as if it were a vassal state, a banana republic." The term “banana republic" conjures an image of a small, politically unstable regime with an ever-changing leadership, dependent on a larger power like the U.S. The derogatory expression was first attached to Central American countries, where the trade in bananas and other tropical fruit historically served as the basis for commercial exploitation by U.S.
companies. The word “banana" entered English in the late 16th century, after Portuguese sailors encountered the fruit in West Africa and brought it to the Americas along with its indigenous name. Bananas weren’t widely consumed until the establishment of large Caribbean plantations in the late 19th century.
The Boston Fruit Company, founded in 1885 to export bananas and other fruit to the U.S., was succeeded by the United Fruit Company. By buying up land for plantations, American corporations wielded monopolistic control over the banana trade in countries like Honduras and Guatemala, while manipulating local politics to favor their interests in the region. In 1899, an item in New Orleans’ Daily Picayune described how “Central American fruit
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