Canada and Mexico won the biggest prizes from the United States. President Bush told Canada it will be eligible for a second round of US-financed reconstruction contracts in Iraq that the administration valued at about $4.5 billion.

A day earlier, Mexican President Vicente Fox accepted an invitation to visit Bush's ranch in Texas and praised his proposal that would allow migrants to work temporarily in the United States.

Others also welcomed Bush's plan. Honduran President Ricardo Maduro said it would "allow us to have closer ties to Latin Americans in the United States."

But countries complained the region was not doing enough to battle poverty. During negotiations, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent asked: "What's the use of freedom if people are poor?"

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said governments need "a new development concept" that distributes income fairly.

"If we want a world that is safe and stable, we must strive toward a just and fair world," he said.

Outside the meeting site, in the mountains of northern Mexico, about 100 anti-globalisation protesters clashed with police, hanging an effigy of Bush on a security barrier and burning it before a wall of riot police.

Bush arrived at this week's summit to find many nations publicly criticising his free trade stance.

The leaders agreed to support a hemisphere-wide trade area without setting a firm deadline, a concession to Brazil and Venezuela.

The United States had sought a 2005 deadline for the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement. The summit's final declaration calls for following the FTAA's "established timetable," with no specific date mentioned.

Although the original timetable called for an accord by 2005, recent FTAA talks have stalled on the prickly issues of removing agricultural subsidies and intellectual property rights. Many have questioned whether the original timetable is still realistic.