America's top trade official, Robert Zoellick, went to Africa to preach the new gospel. Free trade is good for your economies, he told representatives of 31 countries assembled in Mauritius to mark the second anniversary of the US African growth and opportunity act, a regional trade pact allowing them special access to America's markets. Africa would "benefit greatly" from reducing or even eliminating subsidies and other barriers to trade, Mr Zoellick told the meeting. Pity then, that the message doesn't seem to have got through to America's farmers - who received an 10% increase in subsidies last year - or for that matter the American steel industry, which George Bush protected from foreign competition with punitive tariffs on imports.