10:33 PM EDT on Friday, July 15, 2005

By PAUL NOWELL
Associated Press

DALLAS, N.C. — Inside a packed auditorium the textile mill and community college where President Bush dropped in Friday, the crowd cheered as he promoted a proposed free-trade deal with Central America.

But outside, protesters and opponents warned again about the dangers of a trade deal they worry will add to the continued gutting of the state's once prosperous textile industry.

The critics included former vice presidential candidate John Edwards and Jerry Meek, head of the state's Democratic Party.

Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, skipped the protests but issued a statement calling Bush's visit an affront to long-suffering textile workers.

"After President Bush has turned his back on struggling communities for so long, it is insulting that he is coming to North Carolina to promote another trade deal that is bad for our economy and bad for our workers," he said.

Edwards' opposition lines him up with unexpected company. Rep. Robin Hayes, usually a solid supporter of the president, has said he will vote against the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA. Other Republicans such as Rep. Walter Jones and Charles Taylor also are leaning against the deal.

They argue CAFTA will doom what's left of the state's ailing textiles industry.

"We still buy textiles, but most aren't made in Dallas or Belmont or Kannapolis anymore," Meek said. "They are made cheaply by underpaid workers in faraway places."

But Bush told about 800 people at Gaston College that CAFTA will help save American jobs instead of helping to ship more of them outside of the country.

"This deal is a good one for workers," Bush told the cheering audience. "CAFTA will help American textile workers by keeping the textile industry here. Central America is the second largest market for our textile products."

Signed by the United States a year ago, the trade agreement would end or sharply lower trade barriers with the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, as well as the Dominican Republic, a Caribbean nation.

About 100 workers from the R.L. Stowe Mills Bush visited earlier in the day sat behind him during the speech. Later, they said they supported free trade.

"I hope he does a good job for textiles," said Laura Hunt, 43, who has worked at the Stowe plant for 20 years. "I'm a single mom and I need the job.

"I believe he stands behind us."

CAFTA passed the Senate two weeks ago on a 54-45 vote and it could come up as early as next week in the House, where both sides predict a vote could be close.

Only one member of North Carolina's 13-member congressional delegation has pledged to support the deal. Rep. Sue Myrick, a Republican, promised her vote after changing her mind, just as former CAFTA opponent Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., did, Meek said.

"Senator Burr supported CAFTA despite the fact that candidate Burr opposed CAFTA," he said. "Why did Richard Burr flip-flop? Politics. President Bush twisted his arm, the administration made some promises, and he caved.

"Now, Sue Myrick has caved as well."

An earlier trade pact, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA has been widely blamed in the state for the spiraling number of layoffs and plant closings that have most hurt small mill towns in the state's poorer, rural communities.

North Carolina has lost 163,700 apparel and textile jobs since NAFTA was passed 11 years ago, said Bruce Raynor of the textile workers union UNITE HERE. Since 2001, nearly 400 mills have closed in the state, he said.

"Going to North Carolina to tout the virtues of CAFTA like President Bush is doing today," Raynor said, ".s like a visiting a henhouse and peddling the merits of a fox."