U.S. and European negotiators said Saturday they are moving closer to a settlement of their banana-import dispute, a fight that has enormous consequences for Cincinnati's Chiquita Brands International Inc.

        Meeting only four blocks from Chiquita's headquarters, the corporate executives and government leaders from both sides of the Atlantic said they hoped to make progress on the dispute by a Dec. 18 summit meeting.

        “I have some margin of maneuver to deal with concerns on the U.S. side,” said European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, the chief European negotiator.

        Susan Esserman of the U.S. Trade Representative's office said the two sides had had “constructive discussions” on the banana issue.

        Since the dispute started, Chiquita has lost hundreds of millions of dollars, and its stock price has sunk to less than $2 per share.

        “Our focus is on resolving the dispute,” Ms. Esserman said.

        The comments came at the close of the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue conference at the Omni Netherland Plaza. More than 100 chief executives attended before heading home Saturday night.

        While business and government leaders emphasized the mutual importance of the world's largest trading marketplace, it was clear that

        the banana dispute is only one of the high-profile arguments that have put the relationship in danger of fracturing.

        “Trans-Atlantic trade relations are at a low ebb, and the direction is the wrong way,” said George David, chairman of United Technologies Corp. and co-chair of the conference.

        That relationship is important for Greater Cincinnati. Companies in this region alone sell products and services worth about $3 billion a year to European countries.

        The executives reached agreement on a variety of areas. For example, they said they made major progress on new international accounting standards, but little progress on making it easier for corporations to move personnel between countries.

        At their closing session late Saturday afternoon, the corporate leaders made it clear that they expect governments to resolve the disputes quickly.

        “Now we want the governments to deliver,” said Jeanette Wagner, vice chairman of Estee Lauder Companies Inc. “We don't accept, "It can't be done,' from either side.”

        But on the banana dispute, officials from both sides of the Atlantic agreed that Chiquita should not exert as much influence on U.S. trade policy as it does. Even American corporate executives criticized the sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Chiquita's behalf.

        Known as “carousel retaliation,” the U.S. is to rotate the list of products subject to sanction every six months, thereby increasing the pain and pressure on European negotiators.

        In an earlier interview with the Enquirer, Mr. David of United Technologies called the legislation “random street violence.”

        “I'm an American, and I think Chiquita is wrong,” he said. “I think the carousel legislation is dangerous.”

        The U.S. imposed the sanctions last year in retaliation for European quotas that favor bananas from former European colonies in the Caribbean over Latin American bananas marketed by large companies like Chiquita.

        European negotiators argue that the carousel legislation violates World Trade Organization rules, although they acknowledge there is no specific provision prohibiting it. The WTO, which governs international trade disputes, authorized the sanctions last year.

        Mr. Lamy said Saturday that if the U.S. rotates the list of products, the European Union would lodge a formal WTO complaint.

        The U.S. trade representative, echoing a view espoused by Chiquita, counters that the amount of the sanctions is set at about $200 million per year, whatever products are on the list at any time.

        At the lunch meeting Saturday, British journalist Quentin Peel of the Financial Times suggested that executives on both sides of the Atlantic should condemn how Chiquita is driving U.S. sanctions.

        “Both sides of the Atlantic are being bloody silly about bananas,” he said. “It is the most glaring example of a single-company lobby distorting the entire relationship between our two groups.”

        Chiquita officials could not be reached Saturday for comment.

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