President Bush's Meeting with Brazilian President Lula Da Silva at Camp David

MODERATOR: Okay. Well, let's get started. First of all, let me say that we are going to be on the record today, so you can attribute this to our -- what was our Senior Administration Official and is now Mr. Dan Fisk, who I'm sure you all know whose Senior Director at the National Security Council. He'll open with a few remarks and then be happy to take your questions.

MR. FISK: Good morning. Thank you very much for letting me join you and look forward to your questions. Let me just start with I guess a logistical overview of the visit and then get into the substance.

President Lula will arrive at Camp David tomorrow afternoon. There will then be a meeting between the two presidents and the respective teams. There'll be a joint press availability tomorrow afternoon and then the two presidents and smaller delegations will have a dinner that evening. And then President Lula departs Camp David after that to return to Brasilia. Just so that you're all aware, an invitation was extended to President Lula to stay overnight and he has a conflict in Brasilia that -- or in Brazil that he feels that he could not move. But the full hospitality of Camp David was extended by the President. And we're very pleased that President Lula is coming up for this meeting, very pleased to be able to host him at Camp David.

Let me put the visit then in a little different context here. This will be the first Latin head of state that this President Bush has hosted at Camp David. The previous working visit by a Latin leader to Camp David was in 1991 when President Salinas of Mexico was hosted by Bush 41. President Clinton hosted President Cardoso of Brazil in 1998 in what was considered a private visit or social visit. The visit of President Lula is a working visit, but it's fair to say that within the last 16 years there's been only three Latin leaders who have been hosted by an American President at Camp David.

For these two presidents this will be their seventh bilateral meeting and it's the seventh since President Lula was elected in 2002. This will be, as I recall, not to bore you with the facts here, but actually their third meeting in the United States. Others have been -- actually two meetings in Brazil and the others on the margins of multilateral meetings.

Let me talk a little bit about the substance of what we expect the two leaders to discuss tomorrow and then, like I said, I'll be happy to take questions. The top of both leaders agenda is Doha, how to continue a discussion that they started in Sao Paulo on March 9th on how to move forward in the Doha process. President Bush remains firmly committed to a successful outcome. He would like an ambitious and balanced Doha agreement and he thinks it's important that he and President Lula continue to discuss what the United States and Brazil can do, working of course with others, especially India and the European Union to move the process forward and take advantage of what people consider to be a unique window of opportunity for an agreement.

A second issue that will be on the leaders agenda is biofuels. To a large extent this discussion will focus on what has happened since the memorandum of understanding was signed in Brazil. There have been a number of steps taken over the last few weeks to put in motion what the two countries agreed to, including this week the formation of a steering committee to actually oversee the implementation of the MOU. Funding has been identified. We hope tomorrow to be able to announce the initial list of countries that would be beneficiaries of pilot programs. And then we've also started the discussions with the Brazilians about various scientific and expert exchanges -- Brazilians coming here, Americans going to Brazil to talk about biofuels.

A third topic we think that the leaders will want to discuss is how to expand the economic relationship between the United States and Brazil. We have seen a great deal more interest of Brazilian companies looking at the United States as a place to invest and there's been a long established American investment presence in Brazil. I think there's something like 175 of our Fortune 500 that have offices and a presence in Brazil and there are some areas that are ripe for discussion. Some of them get -- I guess technical in the sense of double taxation issues, not that the two presidents are going to negotiate this or get into double taxation, but in terms of directing the respective governments to move forward on finding what are the obstacles to investment and find out ways to expand the relationship.

And in the fourth area is a basket of issues that goes -- issues related to what's happening in the region. Also we think specifically Haiti will be discussed. Brazil leads the UN Mission -- MINUSTAH -- in Haiti and that's a topic of interest to both presidents and then also another area of expanding cooperation between our two countries, our efforts in Africa. This is a region of particular interest to President Bush. It's also a region of special interest to President Lula. We right now are moving forward on a cooperative program in Guinea-Bissau to train legislators in that country that struggles to build democratic institutions. But the two presidents in Sao Paulo expanded that to talk about what we can do to cooperate on malaria. So we expect the continuation of that discussion at Camp David tomorrow.

So I will stop there and then, like I said, be happy to take questions as best I can. So thank you.

QUESTION: I'm Patricia Mello from O Estado Sao Paulo. My question is -- there's President Lula published an op ed today in today's Washington Post and he mentioned two things: farm subsidies and protectionism against imported ethanol. I was wondering if President Bush is going to address these issues tomorrow.

MR. FISK: I'm assuming that they will come up in the discussion. The President has made it clear that we -- that the ethanol tariff is set to remain on the books through, I believe, 2009. For us, we think that the biofuels discussion goes beyond just simply the bilateral relationship and in terms of whether or not our market is open. In fact, to some extent, it is already open in terms of alternative fuels and ethanol specifically. But we also think that it's important to talk about how we increase cooperation. Part of what the MOU is aimed at -- the memorandum of understanding -- is how can the United States and Brazil work together to promote not only development of biofuels but also the use of biofuels in other parts of the hemisphere. And so we have very much concentrated on what can we do in places like Central America and the Caribbean, which is a region that is probably one of the most dependent on fossil fuels in the world and kind of help them deal with not only the development of biofuels but also how they can better use it for their own energy security and their own purposes. And so this is one thing, by the way, that the Brazilians have a great deal of experience on since, as you know, Brazilian ethanol is a product of the sugar cane, and in most of these countries, they grow sugar cane and actually can probably get at least two crops a year out of it.

So there's going to be a range of discussions. It's almost inevitable that the two issues you raised are going to be mentioned, but we also think the discussion has to go beyond those, that there should be a reason and there is a reason for these biofuels, these alternative fuels to be developed and consumed whether or not the United States has a tariff or not.

MODERATOR: Wait for the microphone.

QUESTION: Sergio Davila, Folha de Sao Paulo. President Fidel Castro wrote an article in that independent newspaper Granma about the ethanol agreement. Since President Lula is a good friend of President Castro, can we expect that this is going to be a subject of the meeting?

MR. FISK: I would expect that in the discussion on regional issues, Cuba to come up. I just add a footnote, since you gave me the opportunity, to say if there's anyone that knows how to create starvation, it's Fidel Castro. He also knows how not to do ethanol. So -- but I assume that Cuba will be one of the issues that comes up.

QUESTION: Haiti has been mentioned as one of the topics. The Brazilian congress has said no in the past, that there is a certain limit -- there should be a timeframe for the withdrawal of Brazilian troops. Is this something that both governments are looking forward to, setting perhaps a date for the withdrawals of the troops currently taking part in MINUSTAH's mission in Haiti?

MR. FISK: Well, I think that -- I don't want to try to characterize the Brazilian Government view. I don't -- that's not my -- shouldn't be my role. Our view is that first of all, MINUSTAH is performing a very important task and we're very complimentary of its performance and of the contributions that a number of countries are making.

And I will single out, because we're talking about Brazil, the leadership -- the Brazilian leadership of MINUSTAH. It's very much appreciated and we think its had a positive -- MINUSTAH has had a positive impact in Haiti. And in fact, I think we've recently seen that with some of their efforts to help deal with the gang problem in parts of the greater Port-au-Prince area.

Our view is, is that Haiti has made some significant progress, but we shouldn't start talking about artificial timelines. We should talk about what are the conditions on the ground, what do the Haitians think are the sufficient thresholds which the international community should be thinking about, reconfiguring its presence, but -- just to have a discussion that says on X date or a date certain, it's time to move on.

I don't think that's the appropriate signal for Haiti generally and it's something, clearly, the Haitians should be a part of, all right? We don't see that these discussions between President Bush and President Lula in any way are meant to prevent -- present the Haitians or the UN with a fait accompli. It's better -- discussions will -- I expect to be more focused on kind of what can we do better, what can we do to make more effect -- make MINUSTAH more effective. And that's where I think that actually, the concentration of the time and attention ought to be.

QUESTION: I'm Nestor Ikeda, an Associated Press reporter for Latin America. I have a kind of follow-up of the question about Cuba. You said that Cuba is coming up in the dialogue that both presidents are holding tomorrow.

And my question is if Venezuela is also going to be included in the agenda, especially if the Venezuelan president is promoting a kind of new financial organization called Banco del Sur or Bank of the South in South America aimed to kind of destabilize some financial organizations in Washington, especially the IDB. So my question is if President Bush is going to request President Lula not to join this Venezuelan initiative.

MR. FISK: First, let me reiterate what I said on Cuba, is I expect it to be raised as part of the regional discussion. Let me step back on that and say that to a certain extent, these meetings are two conversations between two leaders and while we, as the appropriate staff, try to make sure that we anticipate topics that'll be raised, it'll be up to the two presidents to set the -- in the end, the agenda, the conversation, just to give you all a sense that these have a certain informality to them. In fact, one of the reasons that we all liked the idea of Camp David, it allowed people to be able to kind of sit around in a less structured fashion and be able to talk about a range of issues of interest to the two leaders.

So on one sense, I am giving you what I hope is a best guess in terms of some of the specific topics and then to what extent that they get into the details is also something that they'll decide as the course of the conversation goes along. I would expect that Venezuela will be a topic as well and I'll phrase that very intentionally the way I have. To what extent it gets into the specificity that you outlined, I don't know.

Our view is, very respectfully, that Brazil is a sovereign country, it needs to make those decisions based on its definition of its national interest. There's no doubt that we have a view on Mr. Chavez and the direction he's taking Venezuela, but it is also the case in which we understand that countries have their own definition of what's in their national interest. So if it comes up, you know, if Venezuela comes up, I'm assuming that the two presidents will exchange their views and be very candid, as these two presidents are with each other, about how they view the situation.

And so I don't want to mislead you and say, "Yeah, here -- that specific issue will come up." I won't take it off the table. I just don't know. But that's -- let me give you that larger answer in a larger context to answer your question.

QUESTION: Ricardo Balthazar. I'm from Valor Econimico. The American Ambassador to Brazil has expressed concerns about Petrobras, the national oil company investments in Iran. Is this something that the two presidents might be willing to talk about or is it something that President Bush has already talked about with President Lula?

MR. FISK: I'm aware of Ambassador Sobel's comments. We're aware of, of course, the issue. Again, it's possible that that will be one that'll be raised tomorrow. As I said, you know, there's going to be a basket of global issues. One of the things I actually -- I point out when it comes to the conversation with Brazil is quite often it's a different set of issues because Brazil very much is a global player. And we appreciate that, so that's really in some ways the best answer I can give you at this point.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) have already talked about?

MR. FISK: I'm trying to recall. Offhand, I don't recall that they have, at least in my time in this position. I know they've talked about the Middle East in previous conversations. Whether or not they got specifically into Iran and Petrobras, I just don't recall.

QUESTION: Jose Passos with O Globo from Brazil. You said that the Doha round is in the top of the agenda. What can we expect from President Bush regarding this issue?

MR. FISK: Well, the first thing you can expect is his personal interest and involvement in the issue, which is one reason that he's meeting with President Lula again within three weeks. This is a significant issue for him. I think it's fair to say that he's repeatedly shown his leadership on the issue when the talks were stalled -- what was it, a year and a half ago. It was the United States -- it was President Bush -- that made a dramatic gesture to try to get the process reinvigorated. He continues to talk about it with other leaders. It's something that occupies a fair amount of his time. I don't want to overstate this, but I think it's fair to characterize it as something on his part of his agenda in terms of internal discussions that we've had within the White House and the Executive Branch.

And I think that this is an opportunity for President Bush and President Lula to tomorrow kind of review where things are and see if there is some common agreement among those two as to what the next steps are and what other leaders maybe they need to either together or individually, and look at it somewhat as, if I can describe it this way, as a strategy session.

But I think the fair question that we ask is that, you know, all the countries that have an interest in the Doha process need to be able to come to the table and also be willing to talk about what it is they're willing to do, and not just simply come to the table and say, "Okay, what is the United States prepared to do?" We see this as a negotiation. We're an active player and we're going to do what we can to make sure that it's a success. But success is not defined by the action of one country. Success is defined by those involved in the process doing everything they can to make sure it's a successful process for the greatest number of parties involved because we see Doha as one of the best means to unlock the opportunity for prosperity for a vast majority of the world's population.

QUESTION: Following up on your answer, I was wondering does the U.S. expect Brazil to play a part in influencing some of its partners that -- whose role is also important in breaking the standstill of the Doha trade talks, such as India, for example?

MR. FISK: We think that Brazil brings great credibility to the process. We understand that Brazil has its own unique relationships with a number of countries that are important to this process. India is clearly one of them, but also the work that President Lula has done in terms of engaging counterparts in the European Union. So I think it's a matter that I would, if I could, characterize this as two presidents meeting tomorrow who want a successful outcome and that they each realize that they have unique relationships that they can bring to bear in this process and that they will each have to individually define what it is they bring and how they work that, but nonetheless that they do have a role to play. So that's -- I think that's the best I can give you on that one.

MODERATOR: Anything else?

QUESTION: Thank you. It's about the countries that are going to be announced tomorrow. We already know that Haiti is probably one of those countries that's going to be the recipient for the investment between the two countries. Could you say the names of the other countries or even the number? We heard about four countries, seven countries.

MR. FISK: Yeah, a fair question and let me -- until it's a done deal, it's not done. And I will tell you, I've heard the same country you mentioned. I've heard the same numbers you mentioned. My best guess is it will probably somewhere around four. It'll be a mix of Central American and Caribbean countries. And like I said, I would not want to give you a list of countries and then all of a sudden for some reason it didn't come to pass because then it would be -- a lot of people would spend time trying to realize were we -- was someone trying to send a signal? And there's all sorts of reasons why each country -- the United States and Brazil would want someone on the list, and it may -- it may have nothing to do with anyone else, we just think this is a manageable place to start.

In fact, that's how we're approaching this is that what's manageable, what's doable. This is a pilot program. It's a pilot program in a couple of ways. One, it's a pilot program in terms of U.S.-Brazil cooperation. We've not done this before together, so let's figure out how we work together. I don't foresee any problems. It's just a matter of kind of how you work those mechanics.

And the second is that what is it that we're -- you know, the expectations of the countries that we want to have a pilot project in -- what are those expectations and how do we deal with that?

And so this is going to be an experiment for all of us. I think it's going to be a successful one, but I also think everyone agrees that let's make sure it's manageable and make sure we get the best process we can moving forward, and then it doesn't take anyone off the table.

QUESTION: Hi. Adriana Garcia from Reuters. Sorry I arrived a little bit late, so I don't know if someone asked this before. What is happening on Doha? Are they actually going on with negotiations? Will concessions be on the table when they talk about Doha?

MR. FISK: Let me -- there has been some Doha discussion, but let me, I guess, go to your question.

The President, I think, sees this meeting tomorrow as a continuation of a discussion he's having with President Lula about the strategy of how we move forward. I do not want to mislead people and say this is a negotiating session. The two -- the negotiators for each country are going to be there. Ambassador Schwab and Minister Amorim will be there. And it's important that they're there because they help inform the discussion of the leaders, but they also hear directly from the leaders their vision of how to move forward.

And to some extent, this is what happened in Sao Paolo and there have been three weeks of active interaction by at least Ambassador Schwab. I will not attempt to characterize the Brazilian side. And so it's an opportunity to look at what's happened in this period and to let the leaders think about at their level what it is they need to be doing next or what is it they need to be instructing their ministers or those of us who work for them what we need to be doing to move the process forward.

So this is not meant to lock people in a room and turn off the heat or the air conditioning until you get an agreement. And that's -- in a way, that's not what the role of the U.S. and Brazil should be. I mean, this is -- again, Doha is a larger negotiation and, again, we're respectful of that. But it is a matter of which it's important, and I think the point I would reemphasize with you all is that this is the President -- on our side, this is the President wanting to make sure he is fully engaged, that he is fully informed, and that those of us on his side are very clear in where he wants us to move forward.

And then we need to come back, and in particular Ambassador Schwab is someone who's going to need to come back and say, Mr. President, this is the deal that we think works, we think works for the United States and that the other parties think work for them. And so, you know, I don't want to create any expectations here that somehow tomorrow at 4 o'clock there is going to be some announcement that this tariff line has been changed because that's not the purpose of the meeting. This isn't the meeting to think of this at the strategic level, but that discussion is going to have very real world implications for the negotiators.

MODERATOR: Anything else?