On Wednesday, January 15, the Senate HELP Committee will hold a committee vote on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Implementation Act. The HELP Committee has jurisdiction over several labor provisions of the trade agreement, which was approved this week by the Senate Finance Committee by a vote of 25-3.

In December 2019, Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said: "Updating the North American Free Trade Agreement makes sense, and this agreement will continue to raise family incomes and create even more good-paying jobs, which is good news for Tennessee auto workers and farmers. I believe the president's stated goal of 'zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, and zero subsidies' is exactly the right goal for Tennessee's auto industry, manufacturers and farmers, and a welcome movement away from piling tariffs on top of tariffs that threaten to destroy jobs and lower family incomes. Tariffs are taxes, plain and simple. Tennessee's automotive industry is so important to me because in 1978, when I was running for governor, Tennessee hardly had any auto jobs. Now, 136,000 Tennesseans - one third of our state's manufacturing jobs - work in the automotive industry at plants and suppliers in 88 of our 95 counties. One of the reasons Tennessee has been able to have so much success building cars and SUVs is because the North American Free Trade Agreement was fundamentally a zero tariff trade agreement."