Bush, Brazil leader talk trade, ethanol

Bush, Brazil leader talk trade, ethanol

	Published : Sat, 31 Mar 2007 21:39 By : Agencies Print this Story

CAMP DAVID, Md. (AP) - 0331dv--bush--camp--david

President Bush welcomed Brazil's leader to Camp David on Saturday for their second round of talks on trade and ethanol in less than a month.

Bush and first lady Laura Bush greeted President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the first Latin American head of state Bush has hosted at his presidential retreat, as Silva got out of a helicopter.

'Beautiful day,' Bush said after they walked through a column of Marines and sailors and past a color guard displaying flags of both nations.

Bush got behind the wheel of a golf cart, with 'Golf Cart One' on its hood, and he and Silva drove off for their meeting. Laura Bush told Silva that she would him at dinner and then drove away in a different cart.

At the presidents' meeting this month in Sao Paulo, Brazil, biofuels and world trade talks, known as the Doha Round, dominated the session.

The trade talks, named for the city in Qatar where they were launched in 2001, stalled last year. Developing countries were upset because rich nations would not make significant cuts in farm subsidies and demanded greater access to markets in the developing world.

No major breakthrough on those talks was expected at Camp David.

'It's going to take more countries than just the United States and Brazil,' Dan Fisk, the National Security Council's senior director of Western Hemisphere affairs, said Friday. 'What the two presidents want to review is where we are and what needs to be done and what President Bush and President Lula can do to move forward.'

Silva could face questioning at an afternoon news conference about an air traffic controllers' strike Friday night that suspended takeoffs at all 67 commercial airports in Brazil. The workers ended their protest Saturday after the government agreed to their demands, including a bonus and review of a promotions system. Silva made the decision to negotiate with the controllers rather than take legal action, his press spokesman said.

The two leaders' talks on ethanol will follow up a memorandum of understanding to promote international ethanol that the two nations signed when Bush visited Brazil on March 9. Fisk said the two hoped to announce a handful of Caribbean and Central American nations that will be the beneficiaries of pilot programs for biofuels development.

But Silva on Friday reiterated Brazil's position that the alternative fuel will not gain traction worldwide unless the United States drops a 53-cent-per-gallon tariff on Brazilian ethanol.

'The subsidies provided under America's corn-based ethanol program have spurred an increase in U.S. cereal prices of about 80 percent,' Silva wrote in The Washington Post. 'This hurts meat and soy processors worldwide and threatens global food security.'

The promotion of ethanol could eventually help wean the U.S. off its need for foreign oil, officials say, lessening the energy dependence on volatile Middle Eastern nations and Venezuela -- whose President Hugo Chavez has long been a political thorn in the Bush administration's side.

But teaming up with Brazil on the promotion of ethanol hasn't pleased everyone. Corn farmers in the U.S. don't like the idea of the government helping Brazil's industry, which they see as a competitor. Lawmakers from corn-growing states have registered their complaints with Bush.