WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Senate has approved a free trade pact known as CAFTA that includes five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic.

The vote Thursday night was 54-45 in favor of the agreement, which President Bush had championed as a way of "strengthening democracy and advancing prosperity" in the Western Hemisphere.

The White House launched an aggressive lobbying effort for the trade pact after it ran into a buzzsaw of opposition from lawmakers from sugar- and textile-producing states facing potential competition from imports, including a number of Republicans who have supported Bush's past free trade efforts.

In the end, 12 GOP senators broke ranks to vote no, but the White House carried the vote with the support of 10 Democrats and independent Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont.

If approved by the House, the pact would remove trade barriers between the United States and Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

President Bush won a victory with CAFTA, but is his economic agenda in trouble? Click here for more.