Camp David, Md. – President Bush and Brazil’s leader plotted cooperation on freer global trade and increased use of alternative fuels in talks that brought the allies together for the second time 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.
“Beautiful day,” Bush said after Silva emerged from a helicopter and they walked through a column of Marines and sailors, then past a color guard displaying flags of both nations.
Like their meeting earlier this month in São Paulo, Brazil, biofuels and world trade talks dominated the session.
Bush called their joint desire to see a global free-trade deal “the most compelling part of the opportunity to work together.”
“It is in our interest to work together to make sure that we have a deal that treats Brazil fairly, the United States fairly, as well as other nations fairly,” the president said during a joint news conference in a small building on the wooded mountain property. “I strongly believe that the best way to alleviate world poverty is through trade.”
The Doha Round of world 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 had been expected at Camp David, and none seemed forthcoming.
Bush said it will take more than the will of just the United States and Brazil to break the logjam. “What we won’t do is accept a unilateral deal,” Bush said.
