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Bill Gates should come out against free trade.

Knowingly or unknowingly the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's good works have helped to offset an aggressive and destructive US foreign policy. The Foundation has done its best to save lives and rescue communities in Africa, while in the Middle East, US foreign policy has destroyed lives and communities.

What is the Gates Foundation's answer to the conundrum of African development? It is to triage Bill Gates wealth towards helping the poorest people in Africa. The scale is different, but there is nothing new in Gates'philanthropic instincts. Helping poor Africans is a fairly traditional practice for US magnates. Generations of Rockefellers have had lots of fun raising money for African charities at $250,000 a head dinners.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aims to rescue African communities by financing the poor, helping small farmers (in particular women) and combating disease. But when it comes to confronting neo-liberal agendas, the Foundation has had very little to say that contradicts them. Casualisation of labour poses a serious threat to the well-being of many African communities. Uprooting people and turning them into footloose low paid workers helps destroy communities, but on the other hand a flexible workforce like this can attract investors. What does the Foundation have to say on this question?

But now a possible Obama presidency is on the horizon and with it should come the opportunity for a shift in US foreign policy too. If Bill Gates really wants to earn a Nobel Prize, then he shouldn't just limit himself to playing the role of the great philanthropist – the All American good guy to Bush's bad cop. Gates should join Naomi Klein in promoting a New Deal for Africa - one that allows African countries to drop US inspired neo-liberal economic prescriptions that do them little good. Bill Gates should get openly political, if he is sincere in wanting to help Africa and start lobbying Obama.

Ha Joon Chang, the Cambridge economist, has pointed out that most developed countries today have used protectionist policies in the past. He suggests developing countries adopt the same strategy and learn the lessons of Korea. Korea's fledgling industries were carefully protected until they were strong enough to compete in the global market. Africa should be allowed to protect its wealth from marauders from other continents, instead of being required by US backed international bodies like the IMF to open up its mineral wealth to foreign mining companies.

Korea developed despite the fact that it had very little in the way of natural resources, Africa has vast mineral deposits that it has to protect from depredation and African countries should be encouraged to husband and use these resources conservatively, as precious collateral for development.

At the present time, the US government backed by the British government, pushes free trade and foreign investment in Africa the same spirit Palmerston was pushed opium on the Chinese. They do so because free trade and investment benefit US and British mining companies, not because they benefit Africa. Noone is denying the need for investment in the African mining industry, But where is the dividing line between investment and exploitation? Wherever it is, western and Chinese companies are not afraid to cross it.

In Angola the Chinese have dealt behind closed doors and Angola's cobalt is almost 100 percent theirs in perpetuity in return for a minimum investment in the Angolan infrastructure. The price is too high. Equatorial Guinea is an illustrative cautionary tale. The Exxon Mobile Corporation's tankers pull up alongside oil rigs far off the main island of Bioko, extract all the oil they can and then steam back into US harbours with their tanks full and slopping. They never even touch Guinean soil. In 2003 they left senior oil executives in the Guinean state petrol company and energy ministry complaining about being left in the dark about just how much oil wealth the company was really extracting. The Guinean government deeply mistrusted the US oil company. In 2004 there was a coup attempt. Last November, on my way back from South Africa, I sat with a senior executive of a large Anglo American mining company who described the Mozambican government to me as "well-behaved", because they had negotiated away mining rights to his company without taking too many bribes. In Zambia, First Quantum Minerals extracts copper for profits galore and when the Zambian government implements a windfall tax to try and take advantage of the countries natural resources to the company complains bitterly about violating international agreements.

If Bill Gates really wants to help Africa he should be arguing in Washington, barracking Obama for responsible ethical investment and a modicum of protectionism.

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