Global Policy Forum

By Elizabeth Becker

When Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, the United States trade representative, travels to southern Africa next week, new free trade agreements will take up most of his agenda.

But he will be met by activists in street protests and officials in conference rooms who will be asking tough questions about American policies on AIDS and farm subsidies. Specifically, African countries are concerned that the United States blocked a trade deal last month that would have allowed poor countries to import generic versions of patented medicines, and they question why American farmers continue to receive huge subsidies.

African officials quietly say they are insulted that Mr. Zoellick, a junior member of the Bush cabinet, is representing the United States rather than the president, who was scheduled to attend the Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum in Mauritius. President Bush scrapped the trip last month as the administration appeared to step up preparations for a possible war in Iraq.

"We were very sad when we learned that President Bush wouldn't travel to Africa and witness the devastation wrought by AIDS-related illness," said Zackie Achmant, president of the Treatment Action Campaign of South Africa.

At his first stop, in Pretoria, South Africa, Mr. Zoellick will meet with trade ministers of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland in advance of formal talks in February to create a free trade zone in southern Africa with the United States.

Mr. Zoellick said in a statement that a future free trade zone would "give new hope and economic opportunity to the people of southern Africa by increasing trade, creating new jobs, boosting economic growth and development."

Absent from Mr. Zoellick's list of goals for his trip was any mention of the H.I.V.-AIDS pandemic. "Free trade doesn't work for the dead," said Asia Russell, director of international policy of the nonprofit Health Global Access Project. "A modest expansion of trade will be of little comfort to millions of Africans who will die of treatable illnesses."

Ministers at the World Trade Organization failed to resolve the dispute over providing impoverished countries with access to life-saving medicine in talks last month when the United States insisted on limiting access to medicines that treat malaria, tuberculosis and H.I.V./AIDS and a restricted list of other infectious diseases.

At issue is a draft agreement that would allow pharmaceutical companies in developing nations to export generic versions of patented drugs to countries too poor to make the medicine themselves. The corporations holding the patents would not be consulted. The European Union suggested on Thursday that the draft agreement would expand the list of diseases to at least 22 diseases.

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