The Senate on Wednesday voted to confirm Jamieson Greer, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be United States trade representative.

The Senate voted 56 to 43 to make Greer the country’s 20th U.S. trade representative, with five Democrats joining Republicans in favor. Greer will be tasked with implementing Trump’s aggressive tariff agenda, plans which have courted controversy and drawn criticism that they will add to inflation.

Greer defended Trump’s tariff agenda during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee earlier this month, including the particularly controversial proposal to apply 25% tariffs to apply to Mexico and Canada unless they cede to certain border security demands.

He told lawmakers that the need to stop the flow of deadly fentanyl into the U.S. is a key concern for the administration.

“These are things where — it’s hard to do this,” Greer said. “How do we balance the cost of lives lost to fentanyl against other potential costs?”

Greer pointed out that the U.S. has a trade imbalance with some countries, such as Vietnam, which has seen a rising trade surplus with the U.S.

“We have a lot of trading partners like this that enjoy very substantial trade access in the United States, and we don’t have reciprocal access going the other way,” he said. “For me, this is a huge problem.”

Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) praised Greer’s tenure during the first Trump administration during remarks before the committee. If confirmed, Greer will play a key role in the 2026 review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which was implemented during Trump’s first term.

“He understands USTR’s policymaking since he served as its chief of staff,” Crapo said. “At USTR, he distinguished himself as an effective negotiator in his work on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, which overwhelmingly passed Congress. As many of my Democrat colleagues know firsthand, he worked closely with them on their priorities for USMCA.”

Greer attended Brigham Young University and later the University of Virginia School of Law and is a lawyer who previously served in the Air Force.

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He previously worked as chief of staff to Robert Lighthizer, the trade representative during Trump’s first term in office. In that time, he helped negotiate the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Greer will be working closely with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in implementing the tariff agenda.