PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) -- President Bush acknowledged Monday that it would be difficult to push any U.S.-Panama trade deal through Congress, but said getting one completed remains a top priority for his administration.

Bush celebrated the progress on reaching agreement with Panama on a bilateral free-trade pact, welcoming an enthusiastic partner in President Martin Torrijos after days of Latin America resistance to freer trade in the hemisphere.

"We're close to coming to an agreement," Bush said after the two met in the Casa Amarilla, a government guesthouse across the street from the presidential palace. "We just got to continue to work it and to get it done."

Torrijos wasn't as strongly supportive as Bush but said an agreement for freer trade between the two nations would bring "advantages and opportunities."

Bush said the deal would likely run into resistance in the U.S. Congress, singling out Democrats who often oppose trade deals for criticism.

"One area that we need to make progress with is the Democrat Party," Bush said. "Panama can help reinvigorate the spirit."

The Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, was recently ratified by Congress, but it came on a narrow vote that required aggressive lobbying by the White House. The president and vice president paid personal visits to Capitol Hill, and Republican leaders held open the vote to leave time for more arm-twisting.

Panama is not a part of CAFTA because Bush negotiated that pact with a pre-existing trading bloc of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

Thirty-four countries failed to reach agreement on the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, during a weekend summit in Argentina, but Bush's first visit to Panama represents what has been his multitrack strategy for opening up world markets.

While the FTAA is stalled and worldwide trade talks are embroiled in thorny issues of farm subsidies, the president has set his sights on individual countries that are eager to do business with the United States, the world's largest economic power.

Torrijos is a proponent of free trade and his country is in talks with the United Staes on a bilateral pact. Torrijos was a leader in trying to move along negotiations for the FTAA at the weekend talks.

Central America is proving to be one of Bush's biggest success stories. The Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, was recently ratified by Congress in a narrow vote after tough lobbying by the White House.

White House aides said going into the Panama talks that they did not expect to leave with a completed agreement. But they said Bush was expected to make more progress with Torrijos in their one-on-one meeting than he did a visit Sunday with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brasilia.

Bush came out of their meeting saying that although Silva wanted to work on worldwide trade, he still needed to be convinced that an agreement in the Western Hemisphere would be a job creator for Brazil.

Other topics on the agenda for Bush's meeting with Torrijos included drug trafficking and the Panama Canal, which could undergo a nearly $10 billion expansion if Panamanian voters approve the project.

The United States opened the canal in 1914 to help ships avoid a long trip around the southern tip of South America. The U.S. also built military bases on the Canal Zone to serve strategic military purposes in the region.

Under treaties signed in 1977 by President Carter and Panama's Gen. Omar Torrijos -- the current president's father -- the United States handed over control of the canal and the surrounding zone on December 31, 1999.

The United States remains the largest user of the canal. Fourteen percent of U.S. exports and imports, as well as 4 percent of the world's trade, pass through it.

But 10 percent of the world's ships today are unable to navigate the narrow waterway. Canal authorities say its expansion would help it remain the fastest and easiest shipping route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.