CAMP DAVID, 1 April 2007 — Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva arrived yesterday for talks with President George W. Bush expected to cover global trade at the US leader’s Camp David mountain retreat.
The two are expected to focus on moving forward the fraught Doha round of world trade talks. These aim to lower global trade barriers but have repeatedly stalled, largely due to disagreement over trade tariffs and farm subsidies.
The US and Brazil, the economic giant of South America, are two of the main players in the so-called Doha round.
Bush and Lula are also expected to discuss boosting trade between their countries and possible cooperation on promoting clean bio-fuels and ethanol, a plant-based fuel which can serve as a replacement for gasoline. The two countries are leading ethanol producers.
It is the first such reception of a South American leader at Camp David in more than 15 years but the seventh time Bush has met with Lula since the Brazilian was elected in 2002. The two also met in Sao Paolo three weeks ago.
Lula’s visit reflects a continued desire by Bush to reach out to Latin America, where left-wing leaders such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have led a surge of anti-American feeling. The meeting at the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains will include trade ministers and a discussion of the two leaders’ shared goal of promoting ethanol use.
“They’ll be focused on how we can strategize to move (Doha) forward,” said Dan Fisk, a Western hemisphere specialist at the White House National Security Council. He added that Bush is “committed to getting to a successful, ambitious conclusion.” Three weeks ago, Bush made Brazil the first stop on his weeklong Latin America tour in which he and Lula launched a deal aimed at promoting the global use of ethanol. The leaders will unveil a list of Central American and Caribbean countries that will participate in a “pilot program” for bio-fuels.
However, the leaders are likely to continue to agree to disagree on one point — Brazil’s call for Washington to reduce its 54 cents-per-gallon (3.8 liters) tariff on the bio-fuel. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Friday, Lula said progress toward a global market for ethanol should not be “hindered by protectionist policies” and cited subsidies on US corn-based ethanol as leading to a sharp rise in some food prices recently.
But Bush made clear at the Sao Paulo meeting that he had not agreed with Lula to reduce the ethanol tariff.
Brazil and the United States are the world’s two leading ethanol producers, accounting for 70 percent of global production.
On the Doha round, breakthroughs are unlikely at Camp David though the meeting may help lay the groundwork for progress in coming weeks, analysts said.
“Lula and Bush are not presidents who get very involved in details of the issues,” said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank. But he added the talks could help set a tone for future discussions among the negotiators.
Negotiators have been trying to galvanize the Doha talks aimed at lifting millions out of poverty by reducing global trade barriers.
The talks were suspended for six months last year and one obstacle is the scheduled expiration in June of Bush’s trade-negotiating authority. Bush is pressing the Democratic-led Congress to renew the authority.
“The atmospherics will be important,” said Sherman Katz, a trade analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The body language of the meeting in Sao Paulo suggested that they found each other simpatico. We’ll see if that continues.”