TAMPA - Accompanied by election-year politics and a whiff of peaceful protest, negotiators for the United States and Panama began a week of talks Monday aimed at completing a bilateral free trade agreement.

Both sides originally hoped to wrap up a deal by this fourth round of negotiations. But lingering disputes over hot-button issues such as cutting tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports to Panama had officials dampening expectations.

“We definitely have a pile of work in front of us,” said Romel Adames, Panama's vice minister of foreign trade and chief negotiator in the talks. “We have no fatal deadline. ... If it takes another round, so be it.”

Teams of negotiators met at the Tampa Marriott Waterside hotel in closed-door sessions that will continue through midday Friday. That left the stage open Monday for boosters and opponents of President Bush's free trade policies.

While working toward creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, stretching from Canada to Chile, the administration has pursued individual deals with like-minded trading partners.

Congress approved agreements with Chile, Singapore and Australia to remove trade barriers. U.S. trade negotiators reached a deal with five Central American countries, plus the Dominican Republic, that still awaits a vote on Capitol Hill.

“An agreement with Panama is the logical next step,”said Regina Vargo, assistant U.S. trade representative for the Americas, before a lunch crowd of Tampa business people and visitors from Panama. “We expect a U.S.-Panama free-trade agreement will open new markets and expand existing ones.”

The nation of 3-million is a relatively small trading partner. Last year, the U.S. shipped $1.8-billion in goods to Panama, about 40 percent of that county's total imports. Easing product tariffs and eliminating obstacles to selling services will open new opportunities to U.S. businesses, officials said.

It was probably more than coincidence that U.S. trade representative Robert B. Zoellick chose to highlight the Bush administration's free trade efforts in a key area of a critical battleground state. Previous rounds have been held in Panama and Los Angeles.

The negotiation also attracted protesters, but nothing like the thousands of marchers, some of whom clashed with police, during broader trade talks in Miami last November.

Around 20 people from a coalition of labor and church groups gathered at a park next to the Tampa Marriott Waterside, many carrying signs against the proposed Central America Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA. Union workers set up a huge inflatable rat smoking a cigar, adorned on its belly with a sign carrying the trade representative’s name misspelled “Robert Zollick.”

Like other trade negotiations, the U.S.-Panama talks aren't open to the public and aren't likely to include protections for Panamanian workers or farmers, said Eric Rubin, coordinator for the Florida Fair Trade Coalition. The agreements benefit only huge international corporations, he said.

“This is an international struggle for decency, quality of life and food grown locally,” Rubin said.

The talks sparked larger protests in Panama last month. Thousands of students, activists and farmers marched in Panama City, demanding an end to negotiations, claiming a pact would devastate Panama's farm sector.

Agricultural products make up only about 10 percent of Panama's gross national product, but the sector employs large numbers of workers in rural areas, said Joaquin Jacome, the nation's minister of trade and industry.

That makes lifting protective tariffs a dangerous proposition. Panama's tariffs on imports average 8 to 9 percent, said Adames, the chief negotiator. But the numbers are much higher on "sensitive products," he said.

Milk in liquid form carries an 80 percent tariff, said Paul Cornville, director of international business for Reilly Dairy & Food Co. in Tampa. Distributors in Panama would pay a 30 percent tariff on cheddar cheese, he said.

“Add 30 percent to my cost of doing business and I'm out of the market,” Cornville said.