There is much I agree with in the paper on China. However, what is lacking is a balanced view of who created the conditions that make Africa ripe for exploitation, not just by the Chinese, but by any other country with money, skills and entrepeneurship to stake a claim.

The erosion of productive capacity in Africa, the devastating impact of subsidies on African agriculture, the opportunistic use of conditionalities by IMF, WB and Western governments all have contributed to the systemic decay in Africa.

Without undermining the necessity for Africans and African Civil Society to insist on equity, justice and the right to benefit from national wealth and opportunities, the analysis of China must also take into account their ability and willingness to take risks in the continent and harness some of the latent productive capacity.

Conditions that are exploited by China such as lax labour, environmental and developmental laws have been actively created by the Northern countries who insisted on these conditionalities and proceeded to not invest, not to provide meaningful aid, etc. It was the North that insisted that South Africa reduce its textiles tariffs (well before the expiration of the MFA), yet Chinese imports get the blame. What role does a country like South Africa play in this? If you live in a National Game Park and are forced by external forces to remove the fence around your house, do you then blame the lion for attacking your family?

In the gloomy world of World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, developing countries are being asked, in the words of one commentator, to “chase a black cat down a dark alley blindfolded”. Riaz Tayob takes us into the corridors of the WTO and introduces us to the complicated and confusing world of negotiations on issues that affect the lives of millions in the Global South. Agriculture, health, services – it’s all up for grabs and rich countries will stop at nothing to get their hands on as big piece of the pie as they can cram into their mouths. In this context, and with a dash of manipulation and strong-arm tactics thrown in for extra spice, the danger is of a deal that is an empty gift but sold as real, concludes Tayob.

The importance of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) belies its relatively obscure birth in 1995. Since then it has been quietly chugging along, spreading economic terrorism of the fundamentalist kind. Market fundamentalism is dressed up in the clothes of growth, trade and development and yet this emperor is still naked. And the emperor will stay naked irrespective of what happens in Hong Kong, China. Whatever deal is brokered during this round of negotiations in Hong Kong or thereafter, developing countries cannot benefit much.

Past experience shows that developing countries can put their foot down and stop the process. However, until now they have been unable to extract anything meaningful from a show of unity and are still prone to the “divide and exploit” tactics of the rich countries. The systemic imbalances of the process work against developing countries and it is interesting to see how the audacious negotiating tactics of the rich countries has forced developing countries to move from being antagonists to protagonists on the same issues in a short space of time. The one redeeming feature of the current system is that the empty gift development deception so painstakingly cultivated by the rich countries and their coterie of media is being unravelled from within and without.

Essentially three outcomes are possible. Firstly, no deal is brokered at all. The talks then promptly resume after Hong Kong. Secondly, some sort of minimum deal is worked out to narrow the differences and then to pursue further discussions after Hong Kong. Thirdly, a big deal is brokered. The rich countries must consent to this as they effectively have a veto. A development deal that really meets some or all of the developing country interests may happen, after all this is a development round. But this is unlikely if developing countries continue to be clear about their demands for development space, corrections to inherited imbalances and the inclusion of new opportunities. This is because the essence of the round is about rich countries seeking market access in the developing countries and not about development. So while expectations of a deal in Hong Kong may be low, developing countries have high expectations of the negotiating round. However, the ever present danger to citizens of the world is that the liberalisation machinery may get its way after all, as happened with the rejected Cancun text being accepted almost verbatim six months later by the General Council in Geneva. The lesson to be drawn from this is nothing less than constant vigilance. Deep technical and political analysis is required to ensure that development is not a casualty of the Doha Negotiations.

The high level of ambition in these current Doha Development Agenda negotiations is being recalibrated. High ambitions, it seems, are likely to harm the prospects of a deal and all parties who have an interest in the multilateral system need to be constructive to make progress. This sounds reasonable enough, but only if one discounts the entire experience of developing countries in the WTO. Why should countries who are facing increasing poverty and inequality compromise on high development expectations? The rich countries have continuously made excessive demands on the agenda, to deflect attention away from the demands of the poorer countries, to undermine legitimate demands for changes in agriculture and to limit policy instruments that can be used for development. Besides defending their current policy space, developing countries have sought greater balance in the system by redress of built in inequities, access to promised opportunities that are meaningful and a change to agricultural subsidies regulation.

This overly modest set of demands has been greeted with aristocratic extravagance of the rich countries who have demanded over the years inter alia:

- a 0% tariff on manufactured goods by 2020 (so called Non-Agricultural Market Access – NAMA);

- rules on competition, investment, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation (the “Singapore Issues” or the “New Issues”);

- reversals on the rights on intellectual property to prevent adequate access to medicines;

- limits on miniscule developing countries agricultural subsidies (de minimus supports);

- more liberalisation on services including essential and public services.

Recalibration of expectations for Hong Kong is a direct consequence of the rich country strategies. The strategy and tactics are so excessive that developing countries have over the years found themselves being protagonists and antagonists for the same issue. This is a reflection not only of their adaptability and “constructive engagement” at the WTO, but the sheer might and power of the rich countries in the negotiations.

For instance, in the services negotiations, developing countries were very hesitant to undertake further commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The general opposition to liberalisation was well recognised and when the rich countries saw that they were not getting market access into poor countries they sought to change the negotiating process from a bilateral request-offer to one that ensured that all countries liberalised a specific number of sectors. Developing countries faced with this audacious demand now spend a lot of their time defending the original GATS negotiating process. The initial proposals on competition policy started by some developing countries were perverted into something that the developing countries later had to oppose. Contrast this with the European Union (EU) first dropping their demands on the four Singapore Issues in Cancun then, according to Martin Khor of Third World Network, “undropping” it so that it is squarely on the agenda now. Developing countries cannot even get issues of major national interest on the agenda whereas the EU has the liberty to drop and undrop an issue. And they perceive themselves to be more development friendly.

The services negotiations are important for the rich countries because most of their new employment is in this sector. It has been packaged by the first world media marketing it as an opportunity for the developing countries when in fact the rich countries are desperate for this access. The services negotiations have not reached a point where outstanding issues have been sorted out. At this stage a country has very little idea about the scale and size of a liberalisation offer because the rules have not been worked out. In addition, there has been no progress on measures to protect domestic service suppliers if there is an import supply surge. Developing countries are being asked in these negotiations, as Chakravati Raghavan in his candid way has put it, to ‘chase a black cat down a dark alley blindfolded.’ The recent US/Mexico case has shown that if a country liberalises services at the WTO, pursuing national development goals may be made illegal.

It is not as if the stakes are not high for developing countries. The damage that can be inflicted on developing countries as a result of this round is enormous. In agriculture, the legal fiction of subsidies needs to be addressed. The developed countries deception was stylised into different legal boxes that allowed them to continue to pay subsidies. By definition, some subsidies were prohibited (blue box), others were targeted for reduction (amber box) and a door was opened to sanitise trade distorting support by calling it non-trade distorting support (green box) that has no limits and is legal.

The fiction that the green box is non-trade distorting is now well exposed. Pertinent for rich country citizens is that these supports go mainly to large agricultural corporations and not to their small farmers, so the issue is not about rural livelihoods and the well being of their citizens. Private corporations receive direct payments from the tax payers and still charge exorbitant prices to consumers for agricultural products. It shows a high degree of regulatory capture of the rich country political system which has been shown to cause untold misery, suffering and environmental degradation throughout the developing world – for which no amount of aid can compensate.

Peter Mandelsohn, the EU trade commissioner, has recently alluded to the importance of food production as an issue of national security. He said: "I don't believe in a free market in agriculture... If we had a free market ... we'd be in the hands of a relatively small number of producers who could hold us hostage." Internally, he does not want a system that would compromise the ability of Europe to cater for her needs. Externally, holding the entire developing world hostage to a system that compromises their food security is not an issue for discussion.

Implicitly, Mandelsohn recognises that the political control that the current trade deal gives the rich countries over the citizens of the developing countries is far too important to be given up. After all, if you can control the food supply of the poor countries, as the rich world does, then it is easier to exert other forms of control. The more brazenly imperialist US does not give as much credence to the European perspective and recognises that ownership of productive resources in the developing countries provides far more political leverage, and is seemingly willing to compromise more on agriculture but also not by much. The EU and US expect the poor countries to salivate over their offers, because of their generosity. They offer to cut the ceiling of what they are allowed to pay. It has no impact on the actual subsidies they are paying, because they are paying less than what they are legally entitled to pay. In any event, they do not want to place any limits on the Green Box subsidies which are legal and have no ceiling. This keeps the possibility open that they can shift their subsidy cuts from one box to the other, meaning that their offer is actually worthless. Less than 10% of their gross domestic product is in agriculture while in many African countries it is over 50%. The logic of the rich countries is: “why teach a person to fish when you can give them a meal”. This is what the rich countries sell to their citizens as “development.”

The rich countries are also pursuing major cuts on tariffs in industrial goods, fisheries, forestry and mining products (NAMA – Non Agricultural Market Access). They propose to cut tariffs by a formula on each and every line of tariffs. Rich countries already have low tariffs and have a proposed a formula that cuts the tariffs of developing countries much more than it would cut their own, in real terms. Yet, in terms of the agreements, the tariff cuts are supposed to non-reciprocal, with developing countries cutting their tariffs less. Argentina, Brazil and India have proposed a formula with a medium cut. The Caribbean nations have proposed a formula that proposes a very small cut for developing countries. Despite the attractiveness of the Caribbean proposal support for their proposal has not been forthcoming. The draft report produced by the Chairman of NAMA predictably sidelines the Caribbean proposal for the Ministerial.

There is an even better alternative method to tariff cuts under NAMA, if tariff cuts are required of developing countries at all. Yilmaz Akyuz says that an average cut in tariffs, as opposed to a line by line cut, will allow developing countries the flexibility to better meet their future needs because they could protect some sectors while opening up others for competition, as long as the changes do not exceed the average tariff limit. What is very worrying about Akyuz's analysis is that the average tariffs of developing countries are already much less than the average tariffs used by the rich countries during their developmental stage. What is even worse is that least developed countries and some others are being asked to place a ceiling (bind) on all their tariffs in exchange for not making any tariff cuts. This is a very serious limitation on their policy flexibility, especially if they are supposed to be getting this round for free. But with usual rich country aplomb, the packaging of the “gift” matters much more than the real contents inside.

In public health, the rich world and the WTO Secretariat in Geneva are all party to a fraud that can directly be linked to the suffering and deaths of millions of our people. In 1995, developing countries secured legal rights to violate patent laws which were protected under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement. Developed countries then promptly proceeded to prevent countries from using these flexibilities and in 2001 in Doha, developing countries secured an agreement that merely restated the rights they already had. The flexibilities in the TRIPs agreement to promote access to medicines had a limit, however. If a country was violating a patent right using a compulsory license to legally make generics, it could only produce primarily for its domestic market.

African countries with limited local production capacity faced the risk of not being able to secure adequate supplies of generics and sought a waiver. The waiver would allow them to secure enough generic drugs, allowing the producers to produce more than the limits in TRIPs. This may have been a tactical error that history may judge harshly because Africa pursued a waiver instead of relying on the flexibilities provided in article 30 of TRIPs, that gives wider flexibility. By pursing the waiver we undermined the possibility of developing article 30, which is more flexible and provides greater access to drugs. In any event the waiver has proven so onerous to be positively useless as no developed or developing country has made use of it in spite of a huge need for drugs.

The waiver had two components, a signed agreement and the text of a speech read out by the Chairperson of the TRIPs council. The agreement placed conditions on using the waiver and the Chairperson's text had many more onerous conditions. The signed agreement did not refer to the Chairman's statement when it was signed. The WTO Secretariat then fraudulently added an asterisk and a footnote referring to the Chairman's text, in an effort to make the use of the waiver nigh impossible. The developing countries protested about this and to date the Secretariat of the WTO refuses to remove the asterisk and the footnote. The developing countries refuse to recognise the Chairman's text as part of the agreement because it was not agreed to and also undermines the purpose of the waiver. So the dispute on the TRIPs agreement is a false dispute created and orchestrated by the rich countries to protect profits at the expense of millions of lives.

The danger inherent in the TRIPs agreement was made very clear at the Second African Union Extraordinary Session of Trade Ministers in Arusha. South African and Kenyan officials attempted to withdraw the Africa Group proposal. The Africa Group proposal is the basis for opposition to the fraud on the waiver and an attempt to secure a solution that is practical. Using tactics that can only be called highly synchronised, South Africa and Kenya tried to get the Africa Group proposal withdrawn. They did this without making it explicit that this is what they intended. Thankfully with concerted effort by other Africans this was averted. It is interesting to note that South Africa indicated unequivocal support for the Africa Group proposal during its consultation with civil society. The change in position therefore undermines the value of the consultations. With Kenya of course, the change in position occurred at a time when the entire cabinet was fired and yet there was a continuity in the position of TRIPs. The powers behind these changes seem to have an influence on African politics that is as opaque as it is powerful.

There is a real problem with transparency, accountability, good governance and democracy at the WTO. The WTO processes are simultaneously crude and sophisticated in their dictatorial tendencies. The draft texts for discussion in Hong Kong have been prepared by Chairpersons who have been accused of ignoring developing countries proposals and putting in elements where there is no consensus. Overall the bias of these chairpersons is toward the rich countries. The rich countries make a point of complaining that they have been sidelined by the chair in an effort to create an impression that the chairpersons texts/reports are not biased. Developing countries have not been as easily hoodwinked as the rich country media on this. The representative of Venezuela, upset at the text presented by a Chair, asked him “where does your responsibility [for the text] end and where does ours [the members] begin.”

From the very beginning developing countries have to start negotiations from a point of weakness that has been built into the process. The fact that Pascal Lamy is now the Director General of the WTO should also not be forgotten. He was unanimously selected for the job and has moved from being the bully boy in the school yard to the teacher with the whip. What is clear is that he has not seemed to have changed his tendency to tell developing countries what is good for them. He did this in his previous position as EU Trade Commissioner and continues to this day. In what must have been one of his lowest moments in his career, he addressed the AU Trade Ministers meeting in Arusha. He said that expectations must be recalibrated and that African countries should develop a bottom line. This was not a problem. However like Father Christmas he came carrying the “gift” of “aid for trade” and the promise of an increase in assistance for African countries. Now it can be seen as genuine, but in the context of North-South relations it can also be seen as an attempt to buy up the ministers. After all, many African states are aid dependant and are easily influenced in this way.

The danger of a deal that is an empty gift, well packaged by Lamy and his de facto political bosses in Washington and Brussels, is real. The Lamy factor should not be underestimated. The WTO may be a medieval institution, as Lamy once called it. He now has the power of the medieval lords behind him to drive a deal whatever the cost to developing countries. Developing countries should remain vigilant and ensure that they get what they want from the round. They do need to do a lot more to expose the injustices that they face in the process because without such exposure, the rich countries maintain and extend their power. If they do this more and more, then any failure of this round can be clearly blamed on the rich countries instead of them.

* Riaz Tayob works for the Southern and Eastern African Trade Negotiation Institute (SEATINI) www.seatini.org

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The North-South economic and political divide is the overriding concern in international trade relations, with the rich North creating conditions that allow for the pillaging and primitivisation of the poor South. Combined the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) adopt a coherent and comprehensive neo-liberal paradigm for trade and economic management, and this free trade ideology is imposed on developing countries.

There are serious deficiencies in this ideology, which are rarely given any credence, or receive at best grudging acknowledgement. The North uses the free trade ideology as a means of domination over the resources and livelihoods of the people of the South. One does not have to be a radical or a revolutionary to question the merits of their policies; simply looking at the economic history of rich countries is instructive. Do as I say and not as I did is the North's mantra.

The neo-liberal, free trade, Washington Consensus ideology is used as a tool to maintain resource flows from the South to the North. Militarily the colonisers were kicked out of African countries after bloody and horrific struggles. Neo-liberalism replaced military colonial occupation and ensures that resource flows from the South to the North continue. Instead of rule by the gun, it became: rule by trade policy. Free trade was used as the ideology to continue to maintain colonial economic relations with the South.

Trade is regulated primarily by the WTO. After the collapse of the WTO Cancun Ministerial, where developing countries refused to be bullied into accepting onerous trade and development terms, the United States of America (USA) and the European Union (EU) indicated that they would pursue Regional Trading Arrangements (RTA's) with countries.

The failure of the economic superpowers to achieve what they desired at the multilateral level must inform our analysis of what they hope to achieve at the regional negotiations level. Since many issues the North hoped to impose on the South through the WTO were rejected, it is imperative for the South to maintain this consistency in RTA negotiations simply because the issues are not in our interest. However, Southern governments, especially in Africa, are much weaker in regional and bilateral negotiations with the North than they are at the WTO simply because of their extreme (and increasing) dependence on the North.

The rational for African countries entering into RTAs are complex. There is the overriding perception that RTAs improve a country's economic development because of the alleged link between liberalisation and economic growth. However, a United Nations Development Programme longitudinal study of least developed countries found indications that liberalisation leads to de-industrialisation. One of the main reasons for entering RTA's is that regional bodies have greater representative and market power and may improve parity in bargaining. In order to benefit from the consolidation of representation, one can, wrongly, presume that there is an African regional integration plan that guides efforts in this regard.

The WTO establishes the framework for the implementation of free trade values: liberalisation is the aim of international trade. For an RTA to be WTO compliant it must result in higher levels of economic integration within a reasonable period of time, cover substantially all trade and be more liberalised than the WTO regime. This means that RTAs extend liberalisation commitments even further.

International trade is also impacted upon by the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IFIs actively promote Washington Consensus values of neo-liberal economics. The principle ideology they impart is that the market allocates resources best and the state should not interfere by creating market distortions. They also promote tariff reductions and trade liberalisation generally, forcing the South to give for free what the North should bargain for in negotiations.

In the context of RTAs it is important to recognise that the combination of these factors indicates that trade policy (and development policy) is externally determined by participation with the IFIs and the WTO. These agreements regulate the development path that is open for countries to follow. The control in many instances is indirect and in many more it is quite direct.

But free trade and liberalisation were not used as policies by the North to reach their current stage of development. The Now Developed Countries (NDCs) used different sets of policies (almost the exact opposite of the Washington Consensus). Free trade and liberalisation are now mantras prescribed under the guise of being pro-development. The North used state power to regulate markets, increased the social wage, created public services, used tariffs as a means of industrial development and controlled investment flows amongst other measures.

For evaluation of African policies and global engagement, it is therefore revealing enough for us to begin our analysis in comparing the IFI/WTO prescriptions with the policies used by the North previously (historic capitalism), in order to understand what is happening to the South presently, within this form of neo liberal globalisation. One need not be a revolutionary to see that things in our countries are getting worse or that the policy prescriptions used are so divorced from reality as to be positively harmful.

Neo-liberalism treats all economic activities alike, whereas the North developed by not treating all economic activities alike. Simply put, the North recognised that investing in a casino would have a different developmental impact from say housing construction. This is a distinction the neo liberal system does not allow governments to make, so for instance subsidies under the WTO can be made to general sectors and not specific industries. Or, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) treats basic health and water services the same as tourism and gambling, when there are clearly qualitative differences.

The neo-liberal ideology also pushes for perfect competition, which is a utopian ideal that has never existed! In the early stages of development, the Northern countries actually pursued anticompetitive policies to assist with their development. Practically Northern countries followed the principle of protection of industries including infant industries and only opened their markets once a particular level of market dominance/ economies of scale were achieved. This is in direct contradiction with the arguments against infant industry protection and in favour of consumer welfare effects of liberalisation based on efficiency, which are being shoved onto African developmental agendas. Tariff liberalisation is promoted by the WTO and the IFIs when high tariffs were the primary tool used to develop manufacturing capacity in the North. In other words, the system forces African governments to prefer cheaper imported goods over job creation at a time when unemployment is rife. The recognition that imported goods contain labour is not obvious, and we continue to import labour contained in our imports and make them cheaper by liberalising tariffs.

By using the economic analysis toolbox that the Northern countries themselves used to develop, we see a world that is violently intent on keeping us in poverty in perpetuity. The term violently is not used lightly because at present even an analysis of Africa's chances of pursuing Schumpertarian increasing return activities is heavily constrained by our international commitments, our so called level of global integration.

Since regional integration is a reality that must be dealt with, national and regional development agendas should, at the very least (but not only), incorporate the view that different economic activities have different impacts on the economy as Schumpeter pointed out.. Some activities generate positive returns (manufacturing), others are return neutral (tourism) while resource extraction and primary commodity production (after a point) generate negative/diminishing returns. In order to generate additional revenue for the state, so that it can serve its distributive function to improve the conditions of citizens, any international trade engagement must prioritise increasing return economic activities to promote revenue generation occasioned in part by tariff income losses due to imposed trade liberalisation. The impact of these losses is not discussed adequately in the public domain and there is a presumption that everything will be alright.

The WTO for instance allows tariff escalation. This means that it is cheaper and easier for Africans to export coffee beans than it is to export processed coffee. Therefore Africa does not develop beyond being coffee growers. It also allows for tariff peaks that are used to keep out goods where African countries have particular advantage like leather goods. So any move by Africans to develop manufacturing capabilities or to exploit comparative advantage to benefit meaningfully from their products meets with enormous obstacles and disincentives in Northern markets. These obstacles are legal and continue the colonial legacy of forbidding manufacturing in the colonies.

To bring about a change in the developmental pathway for Africa a number of obstacles have to be overcome, the first being the ideology of free trade that contaminates every level of policy making in many countries. Most officials and ministers do not know they do not know or are politically helpless in the face of free trade ideology.

The principles of free trade which are presented as inherently good are unsurprisingly absent in the North's approach to agriculture. In agriculture free trade is turned on its head, because the WTO allows the North to use trade distorting subsidies - state intervention that distorts the market: the ultimate free trade sin. So the system is schizophrenic, it prescribes a host of ideologies to govern trade in our countries (and thereby our development) but fails to apply it consistently in areas of interest to the South.

Because our governments are being pragmatic, they do not see the systemic and structural violence it creates and unleashes on our people. Over 70% of Africans rely on agriculture as a means of living, yet they are prevented from using this comparative advantage. South Africa in particular is giving the land back to black people but is forcing these farmers to compete with subsidised European and American imports. This is a recipe for disaster.

Many governments in Africa, however, are adopting the view that the more RTAs they belong to, the more beneficial it will be to their economies. But, for instance, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is estimated to reduce Namibia's revenue by between 31 and 50 percent over the next twelve years (and these exclude the dynamic effects!). A plethora of agreements would further reduce income. This is not simply a matter for trade negotiators; it has serious implications for governmental stability especially at a time when debt levels are rising exponentially. Money for much needed social welfare is simply not going to be available because most governments rely heavily on international trade taxes for revenue.

At present though, the international trade context within which African countries operate is skewed against them because increasing return activities: - Do not enjoy meaningful market access in export markets (especially in areas where we have comparative advantage); - Do not have sufficiently protected domestic markets to promote entrepreneurship and local development; - Suffer from supply side constraints; - Face continually declining commodity/primary goods prices and unfair competition in agriculture; - Are prevented through whimsical barriers to market entry in foreign countries.

Africa's openness to foreign goods and services within the domestic market is a problem. Africa is the continent that is most open to global trade. This means that even in the domestic market, local manufacturers must compete with Transnational Corporations. African manufacturers are expected to survive without protection from the State. We are trying to compete through exports in highly organised foreign markets while surrendering our home turf and losing out in both. The policies imposed on us simply do not make sense.Africa has slavishly followed most of the prescriptions of the former colonial powers with a spectacularly tragic outcome. If most of what we are doing is so different from what the North did and things are getting worse, then it is time to look at alternatives. There are other views on development that are simply not canvassed at all by our governments. If African governments are to prosper economically and politically, we need to at least begin to look at the policies used in the past by the now rich countries. If our governments fail to even consider some of these alternatives, then democratic government or not, it is a sad day. It is even sadder when these free trade conditions are imposed by many honourable and dedicated leaders who suffered greatly to bring us liberation (Nelson Mandela included), only to compound our people's material destitution.

* Riaz Tayob works for the Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (Seatini) in South Africa

* Please send comments to

Apparently R. Zoellick, the US Trade representative is in the country (South Africa) next week. The US is responsible along with its co-perpetrators, the EU, of the worst form of structural violence on the most vulnerable Africans, the subsistence/peasant/ small /commercial farmers. The US continues to pursue policies of disarm and bomb, where they disarm our tariffs by demanding reductions, and then bomb our countries with cheap subsidized imports. While Africa is afflicted with various natural challenges, the structural manner in which our food sovereignty is compromised is unacceptable and defies common sense. Our leaders need to wake up to the fact that a modicum of food security is required and that we cannot just prostitute all our productive resources to the export market. This fact is NOT suitably captured in NEPAD or any of the other benevolent initiatives that the rich North promotes so that their constituencies can feel good about themselves.

Zoellik's visit is not just coincidental, it comes at a time when South Africa is pursuing a regional trade agreement with the US, soon after the collapse of the WTO Cancun Ministerial and at a time when the inequalities between rich countries and poor countries are greatest. South Africa has only recently woken up to the fact that the rich North does not believe in the entitlement of "South Africa" to a fair trading system and have sold out our Ministry of Trade and Industry by not abiding by commitments and promises made during negotiations (mainly that we would not get a raw deal). The Minister took a bold step when moving away from the position of Friend of the Chair of the WTO in Cancun (a pseudonym of bully's side-kick) and sided with the Group of 21 Countries. This is a far cry from the Ministries active involvement as Friend of the Chair in Seattle and Doha and adequate reasons for this change of heart have not been given.

Yet to critical experts it is apparent that despite all the niceties, we Africans continue to get a raw deal. There is only so much that could be done within the WTO before it would have become apparent that the Ministry even lacks nationalism/Pan Africanism in the trade negotiations (some have argued that this has already occurred). Furthermore, civil society, to my knowledge, has not been adequately consulted on the US - South African Customs Union (SACU) Free Trade Area Agreement. Despite this, principles of negotiations have already been agreed to and phase 2 of negotiations are to commence. If the outcome is anything like the EU-South Africa Free Trade Agreement then we can expect further job losses and market take-overs by foreign firms. However, Zoellick is here to kick start the disaster that is the WTO so that what little policy flexibility we have can be removed! Whatever cannot be achieved at the multilateral WTO level will be relegated to the regional and bilateral levels where US and EU might can be brought to bear at the expense of African food sovereignty, development and well overdue industrialization.

Zoellick of course must come with his bag of tricks. He will probably remind us of how grateful we must be for AGOA and its extension. AGOA like many trinkets that were brought to this shore by the Dutch East India Company, crack upon closer inspection. It allows African firms duty free market access to the US provided that no American firm complains about the loss of its market share. South African pear canners have been dealt a nasty blow by having their supposed benefits under AGOA terminated. So the real message of AGOA is we will give you room to develop but that development can be taken away on a whim (or what essentially amounts to a whim). The US with its typical Orwellian doublespeak says that it will not accord benefits under AGOA to those states that do not meet its human rights and democracy requirements. Their concern does not extend to the Ministers that they force, bully and coerce into making agreements which have not been the subject of consultations or discussions with domestic stakeholders, which is an important part of democracy.

One of the key issues that lead to the failure of Cancun was the European Union, who insisted on the inclusion of the "New Issues" / "Singapore Issues" (Investment, Competition, Trade Facilitation and Transparency in Government Procurement). Developing countries secured an agreement that these issues will only be discussed if there was "explicit consensus" from the members of the WTO. Much like the Dispute Settlement Body in it's opportunistic search for the "ordinary meaning" of words (by window shopping in various dictionaries to get the meaning they want), the Europeans tried to fudge the meaning of explicit consensus in the face of clear opposition to the New Issues by developing countries. The Financial Times, after Cancun, reported that the inclusion of the New Issues was to poke France in the eye for its intransigence on agriculture, and had very little to do with the need for regulation on these issues (South proponents of the New Issues take note!). The US on the other hand does not share an interest in the New Issues simply because they believe that they have most of the elements for corporate domination of the south in the General Agreement on Trade in Services. We can however look forward to the inclusion of the New Issues under the Economic Partnership Agreements that the EU is steamrolling through with other African states.

Zoellik needs to be reminded that his antics are well known, and while he may be on a state visit he is not welcome. We are not interested in a "New Round" at the WTO and we no longer want our ministers sworn at by US trade officials, not given notices of meetings or not even chairs to sit on during WTO meetings when they have to attend sessions for over 10 hours. We have had enough of this US arrogance and we should let its minions know.

* Riaz Tayob BA Llb Llm is a researcher at the Southern and East African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI). The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of SEATINI.