In neighborhoods where events across the Caribbean Sea are often felt as keenly as developments here, the Central American Free Trade Agreement has sparked an intense and divided reaction.

One immigrant from the Dominican Republic, Rafael Chavez, was so emphatic in his opposition to CAFTA, as the pending pact on trade is known, that he almost fell off his wooden stool on St. Nicholas Avenue in Washington Heights. “No, no, no,” Mr. Chavez said, shaking his hands in the air. The proposal to decrease sharply barriers to trade between the United States and the Dominican Republic and five Central American countries, he said, would create negative trade dynamics similar to Mexico’s problems from NAFTA.

“The government will do well, but the poor?” Mr. Chavez asked. “Never, never, never.”

Yet another immigrant from the Dominican Republic, Osvaldo Leonard, who was eating lunch across the avenue, was just as adamant that a more global-market approach would lower prices here and in the Dominican Republic, helping the poor.

“I am in favor of free trade,” Mr. Leonard said. “It will help the campesino a great deal.”

With President Bush strongly backing the agreement, it is up to Congress to decide whether CAFTA becomes law. It will be a tough battle.The measure faces staunch opposition on Capitol Hill, with Democrats opposing it mainly on human-rights and labor grounds, and many Republicans swayed by powerful industry groups lobbying against the agreement.

In local Latino neighborhoods, the debate is being drawn largely along lines of those who say the agreement will enable the poor countries to enter the global market, and those who say American interests will abuse them.

A leading organizer of the supporters is a Dominican-born entrepreneur, Jose Fernandez. The president of the Bodega Association of the United States, he has organized his 7,200 members to send letters to Congress to show their support for the measure. It will drive down the price of imports, helping New York City consumers, and will improve life for agri cultural workers in the Dominican Republic as well, he said.

“Most of the things that we sell in bodegas, like fruit and vegetables and agriculture, these products come from those countries at a very

high price,” he said. “We are going to sell the same product we are already buying, at a cheaper price and a better quality.”

In fact, as the Washington Post reported this month, the agreement would have little effect on bodegas, because America does not levy high tariffs on imports from the Caribbean. About 80% of American imports from CAFTA countries already arrive without tariffs. The greater effect would be on American exports, many of which still face steep tariffs in those countries.

While Mr. Fernandez has worked to show Congress the community’s support, an international vice president for UNITE-Here, Wilfredo Laranceunt, has been organizing in favor of the treaty. UNITE-Here is a union of workers in the garment trades. Last month, when President Fernandez of the Dominican Republic came to New York to promote CAFTA, Mr. Laranceunt stood in front of City College protesting the pact.

“We wanted to let the president know that this treaty does not benefit the Dominican people in the Dominican Republic nor the people in the United States,” he said. Low-wage jobs in New York will be lost to countries where working conditions are worse and even abusive, he argued.

The basic lesson comes from NAFTA, Mr. Laranceunt said. His mother, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, arrived in the early 1960s and raised four children on a job in the Garment District. NAFTA, he said, drove jobs like that overseas.

Some economists have said the argument is false. The Mexican economy is experiencing a 2.4% annual growth rate, which is often attributed to NAFTA.

The message of growth from free flowing trade between countries is the message that the presidents of the six Latin American countries included in the pact – besides the Dominican Republic, they are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua – promoted on a joint trip to America last month.

As part of the trip, Mr. Fernandez visited the editorial room of El Diario/La Prensa to drum up support. The next day the paper wrote an editorial supporting the treaty. Noting the impressive show of unity exhibited by the Latin American leaders, the paper urged its readers to “support the presidents on DR-CAFTA, writing that while it is an “imperfect proposal,” they would defer to the leaders of those countries, who “see it as the best deal they could negotiate for their nations.”

In Queens, an organizer of the Central American group Centro Hispano Cutlatcan, Eduardo Varonha, is not convinced the leaders have the common people in mind. After meetings with unions, he said he realized the pact would not help residents of his native El Salvador.

It’s not that he is against CAFTA or free trade, he said. Indeed, he believes that Central American countries, still recovering from the devastating unrest of the 1980s, desperately need more trade.

“We think that CAFTA would be good,” he said in Spanish, “but it needs to protect the rights of the workers, improve the salaries, and the environment.”

The New York delegation in Congress appears to agree. While Senator Clinton said she is still considering her stance, Senator Schumer has come out strongly against the pact, citing human-rights concerns. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus opposed the agreement, and various New York members of the House have been outspoken in their criticism.

While Congress tackles the issue on Capitol Hill, from the bodegas to the churches of New York, the debate shows no sign of abating.

“It’s on the radio, it’s in the papers, it’s on public-access television,” the director of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, Raquel Batista, said, noting that new alliances across national groups are being forged to create forums on the issue. “It’s being discussed everywhere.”