WASHINGTON - U.S. manufacturers and farmers would enjoy increased access to Central American markets under a free trade agreement signed Friday, but U.S. textile makers and sugar producers are worried about the increased competition they will face as trade barriers are lowered.

Ultimately, the voters may decide the fate of the Central American Free Trade Agreement because of the different views held by President Bush and presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry.

The Bush administration hopes Congress will approve the agreement during a lame-duck session after the November elections. Kerry said Friday that if he is elected, he will demand that the pact be renegotiated to include better protections of worker rights and the environment.

Signed Friday

The agreement was signed Friday by the chief trade negotiators of the United States and five countries of Central America Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The Dominican Republic will be part of the package when it is presented to Congress, but the country will have to wait until this summer to sign the deal because its negotiations were completed later.

The six nations will represent the second largest market for U.S. products in Latin America, second only to Mexico.

A ceremony was held Friday in an ornate hall at the Organization of American States, while outside a small band of demonstrators paraded with signs saying "Make trade fair."

In many ways, the battle over CAFTA is shaping up to be a replay of the fight 11 years ago over the North American Free Trade Agreement, which added Mexico to a free trade zone covering the United States and Canada.

Supporters say that opening up the huge U.S. market to poorer countries helps them sell more products here, making them more prosperous and thus better able to buy U.S. products.

Opponents contend that free trade deals with developing nations simply give a green light for U.S. companies to move their production facilities to those nations, where they can get cheaper labor and face fewer environmental regulations in manufacturing products that they will ship back to the United States duty-free.

Kerry has said he favors free trade deals only if they include enforceable provisions protecting labor rights and the environment, something he said the CAFTA deal fell short of achieving.

"As president ... I will bring us back to the negotiating table to develop an agreement that provides economic benefits, creates jobs and includes strong protections for labor and the environment," Kerry said in a statement issued by his campaign.

At the signing ceremony, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick took a swipe at Kerry's position, saying opponents are using concerns about labor and the environment as a "pretext" to erect protectionist walls around the United States.

Miguel Lecayo, the economic minister of El Salvador, said through an interpreter that his country viewed a free trade agreement with the United States as a way of "empowering the future with optimism ... . CAFTA is about accepting globalization as a fact and ensuring that globalization will work for our people."

The deal won praise from business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the National Association of Manufacturers who hailed the agreement for its elimination of tariffs on about 80 percent of U.S. manufactured goods on the first day the deal goes into effect. The remaining tariffs are to be phased out over 10 years.

Sugar opposed

U.S. textile makers and sugar producers have vowed to oppose the deal because it will lower barriers to their products even though the administration negotiated special protections for textiles and sugar.

Auggie Tantillo, executive director of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, said, "This deal is riddled with loopholes that will destroy tens of thousands of U.S. textile and apparel manufacturing jobs."

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., whose state is a big producer of sugar beets, complained that CAFTA was another example of a bad trade agreement that will add to already record U.S. trade deficits. Last year's trade imbalance hit an all-time high of $490 billion.

The agreement sets the kind of precedent that could eventually wipe out sugar beet farming in the Red River Valley and throughout the United States, Dorgan said. The industry contributes more than $2.6 billion each year to the economies of North Dakota and Minnesota alone, Dorgan said, and accounts for thousands of jobs.

"Look, this isn't theory any more. The evidence is before us. The North American Free Trade Agreement cost us more than half a million jobs. Now they are proposing that we do the same thing we did with Mexico," Dorgan said.

The CAFTA countries would be allowed to import an additional 100,000 tons of sugar yearly, which is nearly double the current amount, according to Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D. That allowance would increase to over 200,000 tons annually over 15 years.

"Incrementally allowing subsidized foreign sugar access to our market can lead to 'death by a thousand cuts' for our sugar industry in the Red River Valley," Pomeroy said.

The AFL-CIO opposes the deal. Its president, John Sweeney, said, "CAFTA would reward companies that ship American jobs overseas with greater access to the U.S. market."

The United States recently made free trade deals with Australia, Morocco and Bahrain, which concluded negotiations Thursday. Those are awaiting congressional approval.

The United States already has free trade agreements with Canada, Mexico, Israel, Jordan, Chile and Singapore.

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