Key global trade talks in Mexico next month will openly expose the differences between the West and developing nations and are already doomed to fail, African ministers and trade chiefs said.
There is little agreement between industrialised nations and those grouped as least developed countries (LDCs) over a wide range of issues - stretching from subsidies to US and European farmers, to greater access to markets, they said.
Agricultural trade and access to cheaper drugs for a crippling Aids pandemic will be high on Africa's agenda during the ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, which is expected to put a seal on issues agreed at the Doha round.
"The big question is the issue of agricultural subsidies," said Wiseman Nkuhlu, a senior economic adviser to South African President Thabo Mbeki.
"If there is no movement or commitment on the part of the developed countries to do something to reduce the subsidies that really impact negatively on African exports, that will be really disastrous for Africa."
Nkuhlu, who is also CEO of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) - the continent's economic rescue plan - told Reuters that US and EU subsidies on cotton and sugar had devastated economies of poor states like Mozambique, Angola and Burkina Faso.
Zambian Trade and Industry Minister Dipak Patel said Africa saw the progressive nature of subsidy reductions in Europe as far too long drawn out and so harmful to the continent's growth.
Patel added that African states were appalled by proposals from developed countries to give multinational companies the power to overide sovereign states when trade disputes emerged.
"Trying to make multinationals more sovereign than independent countries, to supercede sovereign states, is ridiculous, it is far-fetched," Patel said.
Patel had little hope for any constructive developments at the Cancun talks.
"I am going to Cancun... but I don't see much happening there to be honest. We are not going to come to an agreement on these issues (that affect Africans)," he said.
South Africa's trade minister Alec Erwin said last week that the Cancun talks would be rough and also expressed pessimism that an agreement could be reached.
Tanzanian Trade Minister Juma Ngasongwa told Reuters he saw a danger in Africans not agreeing to anything in Mexico, but being forced to sign a last-minute rushed-through deal that they did not understand very well.
"Ultimately we will be made to make decisions that will impact negatively on us," he said.
"For us cheaper drugs (for Aids) is a big issue and there is little movement."