SAO PAOLO, Brazil – President George W. Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva today agreed to share technology to develop alternative fuels and reduce reliance on oil from Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez is an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, Bloomberg News reports.
“If you’re dependent on oil from overseas, you have a national security issue,” Bush, 60, said in Sao Paulo, the first stop in his six-day tour of Latin America. The biofuels partnership is also intended to reduce pollution and improve local economies.
The United States and Brazil are the world’s top producers of ethanol, accounting for more than 70 percent of global production.
Brazil, which has the biggest economy in Latin America, is the world’s only major ethanol exporter. Its ethanol shipments are expected to more than triple in the next eight years as production outpaces domestic demand, according to the Brazilian minister of agriculture.
