Central America is optimistic the United States will approve a new free trade pact even if Democrat John Kerry wins the presidential election in November, a Honduran official said on Wednesday.
"We think we'll have a strong case to present to whoever the president is," Honduran Ambassador to the United States Mario Canahuati told Reuters. "If Kerry wins the presidency, (we think we can) convince him it's the right thing to do."
The Bush administration is set to sign the new free trade pact with five Central American countries - Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua - on Friday.
The White House also wants to attach a free trade pact with the Dominican Republic to the US-Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, before seeking congressional approval. But Kerry, who has been endorsed by the 13-million-member AFL-CIO labour federation, has said he would not sign the pact and that its labour and environmental provisions are too weak.