February 8, 2007
INDIA WEST:
U.S. Seeks Partnership With Brazil on Ethanol: Countering Oil-Rich Venezuela Is Part of Aim (Monte Reel, February 8, 2007, Washington Post)
The United States and Brazil, the two largest biofuel producers in the world, are meeting this week to discuss a new energy partnership that they hope will encourage ethanol use throughout Latin America and that U.S. officials hope will diminish the regional influence of oil-rich Venezuela. [...]"It's clearly in our interests -- Brazil's and the United States's -- that we expand the global market for biofuels, particularly ethanol, and that it become a global commodity of sorts," said R. Nicholas Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state, who led discussions with Brazilian government officials on Wednesday.
For the United States, the initiative is more than purely economic. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has exploited regional frustrations with the market-driven economic prescriptions that the United States has promoted throughout the region for years, and he has used oil revenue to promote several regional economic alliances.
Burns declared that biofuel is now the "symbolic centerpiece" of U.S. relations with Brazil, a country that U.S. officials have long hoped could counteract Venezuela's regional anti-American influence.
We should also be pushing for Brazil to get the Latin American seat in a reconfigured Security Council. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 8, 2007 8:10 AM
We can do even more toward this end by removing the tariff on imported, sugar-cane-based, ethanol. It can help us right a corn market that has been grossly thrown out of whack, as any cattle feedlot owner or Mexican tortilla maker can tell you.
Posted by: Brad S at February 8, 2007 9:20 AMIt's clearly in our interest to burn food. For those in the third world who would otherwise eat that food--not so much.
Posted by: b at February 8, 2007 12:11 PM