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U.S. Senate backs free trade pact
 YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSWASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Senate Thursday night approved a free trade pact with five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. The vote was 54-45 in favor of the agreement, which U.S. President George W. Bush had championed as a way of "strengthening democracy and advancing prosperity" in the Western Hemisphere. The White House launched an aggressive lobbying effort for the trade pact, known as CAFTA, after it ran into a buzzsaw of opposition from lawmakers from sugar- and textile-producing states facing potential competition from imports, including a number of Republicans who have supported Bush's past free trade efforts. In the end, 12 GOP senators broke ranks to vote no, but the White House carried the vote with the support of 10 Democrats and independent Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont. If approved by the House, the pact would remove trade barriers between the United States and Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. The House probably will vote on the agreement in July. The White House issued a statement saying CAFTA would further open a market of 44 million consumers of U.S. products and "promote democracy, security and prosperity in a part of the world once characterized by oppression and military dictatorship," The Associated Press reported. Supporters also said the agreement would be a bulwark to protect the hemisphere from further trade inroads by China, according to AP. The six CAFTA nations now import about $15 billion worth of American products annually, making the region the 13th largest U.S. market. 
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