Teaming with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, President George W. Bush visits the Latin American region for the eighth time, this time campaigning for alternative fuel production.
The two are pushing that an increase in alternative fuel use will propel the opportunity for more jobs, a cleaner environment and a lessened dependence on the volatile oil market.
“It makes sense for us to collaborate for the sake of mankind,” Bush said, after touring an ethanol depot. “We see the bright and real potential for our citizens being able to use alternative sources of energy that will promote the common good.”
Brazil has been manufacturing ethanol with sugar cane for decades; about eight in 10 cars in Brazil run on sugar-cane based ethanol. Silva said by 2010 about five percent of Brazilian biodiesel will come be produced by smaller farmers.
“It will help create jobs and income in the poorest regions of our country, especially in the northeastern semi-arid region, where many of these crops are actually native,” Silva said.
Bush is looking to revive the idea for a vast global free trade agreement; Brazil has weakened that possibility by forming a rival trade bloc with Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. At the same time, Silva attempted to persuade Bush to repeal or reduce the 54 cent-per-gallon U.S. tariff on Brazilian, sugar-based ethanol.
Here, the two don’t agree. Silva said Brazil would like to see the U.S. reduce subsidies to American farmers; the U.S. wants Brazil to open its markets for U.S. companies.
Bush stood firm, reminding the interviewer that “the law doesn’t end until 2009.”
As President Bush begins his visit to different countries in the region, Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, rounds up a fleet of thousands of leftists followers for an anti-Bush rendezvous in Buenos Aires.
Chavez’s platform is based on the allegation that Bush’s trip is meant to divide Venezuela’s leftist government. Bush’s urge for continued aid wasn’t met with friendly feedback either.
“I believe the chief objective of the Bush trip is to try to scrub clean the face of the (U.S.) empire in Latin America. But it’s too late,” Chavez told reporters. “It seems he’s just now discovered that poverty exists in the region.”
President Bush denied Chavez’s allegations that the United States has turned its back on the economic issues in neighboring region, telling reporters that contrary to rumor, the United States is concerned with improving people’s lives and he intends to portray the U.S. as generous and compassionate nation it is.
“That may be what people say but it’s certainly not what the facts bear out,” Bush said. “We care about our neighborhood a lot.”
The Chavez-led Friday night rally in a Buenos Aires soccer stadium is expected to last only one night, as Bush leaves for Brazil for Uruguay, Columbia, Guatemala and Mexico to talk ethanol.