Opinion: Free Trade with Ethanol Producers Critical to U.S. Security

Washington DC March 15, 2007; The AIADA newsletter reported that Holman Jenkins of the Wall Street Journal writes today that President Bush's meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last week was a blow against the U.S. farm lobby, long recognized for its protectionism and parochialism.

According to industry experts, the best kind of energy security is a diversity of suppliers. Bush's trip to Brazil was a step towards that goal.

Washington has come to an important crossroads: Will we compound mistakes of the past, using subsidies and protectionism to foster the domestic ethanol industry, or will we support a free global market in biofuels, which would genuinely improve U.S. energy security?

Such a move would quickly cut down on petrodollar dictators. Administration officials have assured the farm lobby that last week's Brazil agreement is no prelude to repealing America's egregious 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on most imported ethanol. The U.S. isn't looking to welcome all this cheap motor fuel into its own market.

Banish the thought! Somebody didn't get the memo to President Silva, who directly drew attention to the U.S. tariff. "They talk a lot about free trade, but they like to protect their own products," he said, and couldn't have been more right.