Bush Heads South of the Border

SAO PAULO, Brazil, March 8, 2007 — -- Just in time for the return of $3 a gallon gas in the United States, President Bush is coming here to Brazil, where the streets are jammed with cars using an ethanol mix.

Brazil has taken the leap from developing the technology to industrializing it -- every gas station sells ethanol. Bush's first big event is touring a fuel terminal where 100 trucks a day take ethanol out to gas stations.

The industry in Brazil inspired Bush to push ethanol production in the United States. Bush will sign an agreement encouraging an "ethanol OPEC" -- Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries -- to control the rates for crude oil throughout the Western Hemisphere.

In the teeming city of Sao Paulo, the desperately poor live in the shadow of the comfortably rich.

Bush begins a week in Latin America with no state dinners but with several events to address what he calls social justice. He says the United States hasn't gotten credit for its commitment of foreign aid for health and education here.

The highway the American motorcade takes in from the airport passes crowded shantytowns built of wood and corrugated metal. Laundry is strung on lines. A small boy is bathing on the curb in a huge blue barrel.

In his five-nation tour, Bush goes from the crowded streets of Sao Paulo to a rural farm co-op in Guatemala. Security will be intense in Colombia's capital of Bogota for the few hours Bush is on the ground.

He tours Mayan ruins in Mexico's Yucatan. And he fishes in Uruguay, where there is a huge anti-American protest rally scheduled across the river in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Although the White House denies it, many see this trip as a blunt challenge to nemesis Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, who has openly called Bush "the devil." Chavez will headline a giant anti-U.S. rally Friday night in a stadium just across the border from the Uruguayan park that Bush visits Saturday.