President Bush will fly into the battered city of New Orleans today, escaping a political storm back in Washington that has left him a loggerheads with his own party in Congress.

With his approval ratings already at a low point, Mr Bush faces a move by Republicans in the House of Representatives to pass legislation that would block the Dubai-owned DP World from taking over the management of six US ports under a takeover of Britain's P&O.

Ironically, the House Appropriations Committee plans to attach that legislation to a $91 billion federal funding programme for states affected by Hurricane Katrina and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ignoring a threat by Mr Bush to veto any such legislation, Jerry Lewis, the Republican Representative, said: "We are going to send a very clear signal that we want to have American interests secured by leaders in America."

Mr Lewis has yet to give any details about his proposed legislation, beyond saying that it will not target any specific country. He said yesterday that he was still open to negotation to win the support of the Senate or even the White House but admitted that "we could have a confrontation at the other end".

The move by House Republicans is a direct challenge to an administration that is used to getting its own way. Until now, Republican leaders have avoided sending the President any measures that he would not sign and Mr Bush has yet to wield the presidential veto in more than five years in office.

But news that the Dubai company was buying the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co, the world's fourth-largest ports group, has changed that. Fearing security breaches in an era of terrorism, Republicans and Democrats in Congress have spent weeks trying to head off the takeover or amend its terms.

John Boehner, the House Majority Leader, told the Washington Post that the Dubai ports takeover had become a massive problem.

He said: "There are two things that go on in this town. We do public policy, and we do politics. And you know, most bills at the end of the day, the politics and the policy kind of come together, but not always. And we are into one of these situations where this has become a very hot political potato."

Later today, however, Mr Bush will turn his attention to what has been a far greater challenge for his presidency: the clean-up from Hurricane Katrina. It will be his tenth visit to New Orleans since the storm breached the city's flood defences last August, provoking a massive row over the federal response to America's costliest natural disaster.

Since that time, billions of dollars in federal funds have poured into the Gulf states, but much of the city remains in ruins and barely a third of its inhabitants have returned.

Mr Bush has come under renewed criticism over a video showing officials warning him the day before Katrina hit that levees meant to protect the jazz capital from flooding could fail - calling into question the White House's insistence that it was caught by surprise.

The only piece of good news for Mr Bush this week came when the House of Representatives finally voted to renew the controversial Patriot Act passed after the September 11 attacks to give Government agencies greater powers to deal with terrorists.

The vote, which gained the necessary two-thirds majority by just two votes, ended months of negotiations over how to balance civil rights with the powers of security agencies, including on sensitive issues such as phone-tapping.

The compromise adopted yesterday imposes modest new restraints on law enforcement agencies in return for the extension of 16 major provisions of the law.

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