The Senate Finance Committee approved the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on a 25-3 vote, setting the agreement up for a potential quick passage.
Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, says the full Senate could consider the agreement within a week.
However, if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sends articles of impeachment to the Senate, that must immediately take priority and would stall USMCA until after the impeachment hearings in the Senate.
Grassley told the Finance Committee the USMCA implementing legislation “has something in it for everyone, and it’s not often that we can say that about an implementing bill.”
Mexico’s Senate has already approved the agreement, and Canada plans to approve USMCA following U.S. action.
Ranking member of the committee, Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon, says USMCA provides “long-overdue upgrades to labor standards, the environment and digital trade” compared with the North American Free Trade Agreement, adding the agreement also provides certainty to farmers and manufacturers.
