Brazil to seek lower US tariffs, accord on ethanol

[maddezmom]

Brazil to seek lower US tariffs, accord on ethanol
28 Feb 2007 21:26:28 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Raymond Colitt

BRASILIA, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Brazil will ask the United States to cut import tariffs on ethanol during next week's visit by President George W. Bush and to help create a global market for the biofuel, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Bush is expected to propose Brazilian-U.S. co-operation in the regional production and trade of ethanol as part of a new policy initiative in Latin America during his six-day visit to the region next week.

"We are interested in forming a global ethanol market; for that we need joint standards ... that's good for us and for them," Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told a news conference.

The United States and Brazil are the world's two largest ethanol producers and cooperation on the fuel is expected to be the focus of Bush's meeting with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on March 9 in Sao Paulo.

Amorim said both countries should work toward common standards to guide an international ethanol market "before each (player) invents rules that could be used as an excuse for protectionism".

more:http://mobile.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28262025.htm

[Eugene]

1. ...not if the U.S. farm lobby has anything to say about it. (x-post from E&E)

(United Press International)

No end to Brazil ethanol tariffs likely

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- The Bush administration does not back a change in tariffs
applied to Brazilian ethanol, a top Energy Department official said Wednesday.

"In the shorter term, I support no change in tariff," said Andy Karsner, assistant secretary
for energy efficiency and renewable energy, in a conference call with reporters. "Those
policies are on a clock and that clock is beyond the duration of the administration."

-snip-

There have been calls to end the tariffs on Brazilian ethanol because of the Bush
administration's ambitious plan for ethanol, which has driven up corn prices worldwide
to record levels. But, experts say, those tariffs are unlikely to be lifted because of
pressure from the U.S. farm lobby.

Full article: http://www.upi.com/Energy/view.php?StoryID=20070228-021515-6385r

[robcon]

2. Gutless response bu the * administration

Free trade is free. The U.S. sugar quotas are a disgrace. The U.S. ethanol tariffs are a shame. That's talking the talk, but not walking the walk, on free trade.

[RDANGELO]

3. In this case cutting the tariffs would make a lot of sense.

The Brazilians make their ethanol from sugar cane, which means that you are creating more energy. When you make it with corn, it takes more energy to make it than you get when you burn it. We would be a lot better off being dependent of Brazil for bio fuel than the Saudis for oil.

[robcon]

4. I believe in ALL cases we should cut tariffs.

Free trade is the best way to promote peace and prosperity in the U.S. and the world.

[RDANGELO]

5. Global free trade without enforced labor standards is a path to slavery.nt

[robcon]

8. Global free trade is the road to prosperity and peace.

The only way we are going to have peace and prosperity is through free trade. The only way to have higher labor standards is to let the market achieve what it has achieved for the West.

[wuushew]

7. I don't entirely agree

Western style affluence is more a less a result of the disproportionate consumption of finite material and energy resources a by a minority population relative to the other 5 billion of Asia, Africa and South America.

Free trade only makes sense when there are comparative synergies to be had by dropping trade barriers on things that can be more efficiently produced elsewhere under identical means of production. That is why we should drop sugar,cotton and lumber tariffs immediately.

Free trade as it is practiced now is simply a hunt for the cheapest source of labor. As dollars flow out of the country we become less wealthy as an aggregate even while the producers of any given good get rich on the parasitic destruction of their own consumer base.

By making China richer we are sending untold billions of tons of CO2 into the air as coal fuels their industrialization. The rising middle class of Asia is competing for the use of scare liquid fuels, of which their is no certainty that a sufficiently large window of time exists to move to an alternative source without major pain.

As manufacturing moves out of the states, the remaining labor pool in left competing for a finite number of service jobs in a more slack labor environment that would exist without the previous manufacturing sector.

[Hunky Dunky]

6. Well, one thing for sure

Is that we need to become energy independent, and not siphon our dollars off into the hands of OPEC oil monopoly countries such as Saudia Arabia and Venezuela. Only an idiot would want a foreign interest to have control over our energy needs. If this aids in energy independence, it's a step in the right direction.