Anyone who doubts the value of comprehensive international trade agreements should go to France.

That nation recently prohibited the importation of cherries from any nation that allows the use of the insecticide dimethoate. Mind you, the insecticide doesn’t have to be used on cherries; just the fact that it could be used in the U.S. is sufficient for French officials to block U.S. cherries.

We won’t comment on French politics. All we know is the French do not allow their farmers to use dimethoate, so they decided no one should.

The fact that U.S. cherry growers don’t use it is immaterial, according to French reasoning. They figure that if French farmers can’t use it, nobody can.

Because only a relative handful of U.S. cherries — about a half a million dollars worth last year — goes to France, the impact will likely be small.

But what would happen if every country started making up its own trade rules, based on the vagaries of local preferences?

The answer is chaos. If Nation A won’t allow a crop because a certain pesticide is allowed elsewhere, what’s to stop Nations B, C and D from doing the same — adding pesticides or practices to the list?

Soon U.S. farmers who ship their crop overseas would face a gridlock of prohibitions. So would other farmers around the world.

Before long, trade would grind to a halt. Ultimately, food shortages would emerge, but not until irreversible damage had been done to farmers and ranchers.

All because an agreement that sets the ground rules for trade does not exist.

It’s not just about the French and cherries. U.S. olive oil is slapped with a $1,680 per ton duty when entering the European Union. Compare that to the $34 a ton duty the U.S. charges for European olive oil entering this country.

U.S. apples face a 7 percent duty when going to Europe, while EU apples face no duty when imported into the U.S.

Now in the negotiation stage is the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the U.S. and the European Union. Besides addressing market access and tariffs, it would harmonize regulatory standards, such as those related to food safety and the use of pesticides.

Many critics of the TTIP have emerged in Europe and elsewhere. They prefer the current system, which appears to rely on sticking it to the U.S. whenever and wherever possible.

Like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that was completed last winter, the TTIP will not be perfect. But it will be much better than the alternative, which is chaos.