Washington - The largest U.S. labor group reacted cautiously on Friday to a deal between the White House and Democratic leaders in Congress to strengthen labor and environmental protections in free trade agreements, while most business groups welcomed it.

The agreement requires the Bush administration to modify pending free trade pacts with Peru, Panama, Colombia and South Korea to include an enforceable obligation to abide by international labor and environmental standards.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said he commended U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, for making substantial progress toward ``improving workers' rights and environmental standards in the Peru and Panama Free Trade Agreements.''

But he repeated the group's strong opposition to trade deals with Colombia and South Korea, which senior Democrats have said face additional obstacles in Congress. Sweeney also expressed doubt about the Bush administration's willingness to enforce the labor and environmental provisions.

The cool labor organization response is a sign of the difficulties House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, faces in persuading a majority of her party to support the deal, which was announced on Thursday.

Pelosi said the bipartisan deal built on the Democratic party's tradition of ``free and fair trade'' while Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, called it a groundbreaking achievement providing unprecedented protections for workers and the environment.

But labor groups and some lawmakers like Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, were suspicious of a provision that would only allow national governments to file a labor complaint under the pact. Without assurances enforcement will not be ''left to the devices of the Bush administration, we will be hard pressed to support this agreement,'' the United Steelworkers union said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, criticized Democratic leaders for saying approval of the Colombia agreement faced additional obstacles because of a history of violence against trade unionists in that country.

She warned that failing to approve the pact would ``throw overboard ... a steadfast ally in our joint struggle against narcotics trafficking and terrorism.''

MOST BUSINESS GROUPS SUPPORT PACT

The National Association of Manufacturers voiced support for the new enforceable labor provisions after earlier expressing concern about where talks on that were headed.

``Our state right-to-work laws and other state laws and constitutional provisions relating to labor are completely exempted from any challenges, an extremely important point for American manufacturers'' NAM President John Engler said.

However, Engler expressed concerns about other provisions, which he said could weaken intellectual property protections, particularly for pharmaceutical manufacturers.

The Business Roundtable, the Coalition of Services Industries and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce hailed the deal as hopeful sign for renewal of trade promotion authority, which allows the White House to negotiate trade deals that Congress must approve or reject without changing.

But the U.S. Business and Industry Council, which represents smaller American companies, called the agreement a ''sell out'' unless more comprehensive trade policy changes were made.

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