Vivek Ramaswamy endorses ethanol subsidies: ‘True consumer choice’
Tiana Lowe Doescher
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OTTUMWA, Iowa — During an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner, Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy explained why he supports ethanol subsidies, a hot-button issue for the Hawkeye State.
“Put the politics of it to one side — I start with first principles,” Ramaswamy said. “There are other countries that have true consumer choice. In Brazil, and many countries, it’s true that any consumer can choose what blend they want, and we know what choices they make. They do choose to have some amount of ethanol. In the absence of the true answer, the true best answer, which is consumer choice at the pump, no subsidies, no minimums, or anything else, that’d be the best choice.
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“We don’t have that,” he continued. “That’s effectively a subsidy to non-ethanol. And so I think that what we have is a second-best approach that meets the reality of the present, which is to say that, where we are, in terms of the minimum fuel blend standards are approximately where the market would have been. That’s the approximation that we’ve made. And that’s why I’m supportive of it.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) famously won the 2016 Iowa caucuses despite opposing broader subsidies for ethanol, a massive export from the first-in-the-nation primary state. Former President Donald Trump, the 2024 GOP front-runner and longtime supporter of ethanol subsidies, is once again seizing on the issue to attack Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who in most national polls is a distant second place in the primary contest.
Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire financial and biotech entrepreneur, is currently tied for fourth place in national polling despite having no previous experience in elected office.
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“It’s not a check-the-box, we love Iowa kind of thing,” Ramaswamy said. “It’s a first principles thing. I think my principle foundation is that we don’t have true consumer choice, so we have to have the next second best thing.”