In a desperate effort to win the Iowa primary, Donald Trump has linked arms with the ethanol monopoly and has started advocating a more expansive ethanol mandate:

Donald Trump said Tuesday that federal regulators should increase the amount of ethanol blended into the nation’s gasoline supply.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, Trump, a real estate mogul and the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ought to follow the ethanol volumes Congress set in 2007.

“The EPA should ensure that biofuel … blend levels match the statutory level set by Congress under the [renewable fuel standard],” Trump said.
The mandate is popular in Iowa, which hosts the nation’s first caucuses.

In setting the ethanol blending mandate for 2016 last year, the EPA used a provision in the law that allows it to waive the specific volumes Congress set out, citing lower than expected gasoline demand, among other factors.

This is very consistent with Trump’s history as a crony capitalist. The ethanol mandate, the so-called Renewable Fuel Standard, works solely to enrich a handful of very rich people and the politicians that they pretty much own. On the other hand it increases the cost of gasoline to consumers, it increased the cost of food to consumers, and it actually limits the ability of the ethanol industry to grow and provide jobs that are not reliant upon a government mandate. In short, it is a metaphor for all the government’s penchant for picking winners and losers that gave us Solyndra and other green energy scams. In an editorial that is not favorable to Cruz as a candidate, the Washington Post has this to say:

WE CAN think of dozens of good reasons why Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) should not win the Iowa caucuses. Unfortunately, Mr. Cruz’s opponents seem to care only about bad ones.
…
The ethanol mandate serves little purpose beyond subsidizing the farming business, which already gets massive federal subsidies. Mr. Cruz is right to favor phasing it out, and his major opponents are nothing but ethanol opportunists.

This goes back to one of the over arching criticisms of Trump. If you actually don’t believe in anything but your own greatness then you can say anything for anyone at anytime. The extent to which he even understands the ethanol issue it is within the context of who told him that it was great and Trump has told us over and over what kind of terrible judge of character he is. Every week it is someone else playing the role of Judas to his feckless and credulous goodwill. Here he was simply reading what he was told to read by an industry lobbyist:

Trump spoke very briefly about the ethanol mandate at the beginning of his speech, reading from notes in a straightforward fashion, before continuing onto other subjects in the more lively manner he usually shows in stump speeches.

And perhaps “puppet” was the wrong word. Maybe “whore” would be a better choice.

While fluffing the bio-fuel oligarchy in Iowa, Trump renewed his attacks on Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

Cruz has “been mixed in the subject, he goes wherever the votes are, so he all of the sudden went over here, and then all of the sudden, he got slapped,” Trump said. “So it’s very interesting to see.”

In fact, Cruz has not changed his position on ethanol and has taken heat from the ethanol monopoly over his plan to break up their cozy little empire. Like so much else Trump says, this is a slander (but as he tries to be good he doesn’t have to worry about mere lies being held against him by his good buddy, God).