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During a keynote address at the International Franchise Association's 2026 Advocacy Summit, Vince Haley, the White House Director of Domestic Policy Council, announced the full support of the Trump Administration for the bipartisan American Franchise Act (AFA).
Speaking Tuesday before hundreds of members of the franchise community at historic Union Station, Haley declared: "I want to say up front, I know the biggest item on the agenda at this gathering is driving momentum for passage of the American Franchise Act. I think you already know this, but I want to assure you that the Trump Administration fully supports this bill, and no matter what happens this year, we have to get it done this year."
The video is available here.
"During the decade-long debate over the federal joint-employer standard, the franchising community has had no firmer ally than the Trump Administration, and we are grateful for their support for the American Franchise Act at this critical juncture," said IFA President and CEO Matt Haller. "Ending the regulatory whiplash once and for all would be a powerful boost for America's 832,000 franchise small businesses, the nearly 9 million jobs they support, and the upward mobility they create. This is the most important piece of legislation for the franchise community in a generation, and with bipartisan momentum building, the time is now to get it done."
More than 500 members of the franchise community, including 88 Franchisees of the Year, met in Washington, D.C., as part of IFA's largest Advocacy Summit. They made the case for the AFA directly to lawmakers on both sides of Capitol Hill.
Introduced in September 2025 by a bipartisan group of seven Republicans and seven Democrats, the AFA is bipartisan, bicameral legislation that establishes a single, franchise-specific joint-employer standard under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act. Since 2015, the standard has changed four times, creating continuing uncertainty for franchisors and franchisees about when they may be treated as responsible for the same employees.
During a speech at McDonald's Impact Summit in November 2025, President Trump highlighted the importance of a clear "joint-employer" standard, stating that an expanded version of the joint employer rule favored by the Obama and Biden Administrations would be "death to businesses like yours and others."