In its first months, the Trump administration’s competition policy is off to a fast start. Its antitrust enforcers have disavowed expansive rulemakings and prioritized growth to reduce the national debt.
As it settles, the administration should continue to target the nation’s most critical concerns, including regulatory excess, foreign protectionism, and China. By working with U.S. companies, rather than against them, the administration can preserve American values, security, and global leadership.
More Enforcement, Less Bureaucracy
The U.S. devotes two agencies to competition policy: the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), an “independent” agency. For reasons both fiscal and constitutional, the administration should support efforts to transfer the FTC’s functions to DOJ and eventually eliminate the duplicative agency.
The FTC’s chairman, Andrew Ferguson, has argued that “Independent agencies are not good for democracy.” Future historians will marvel that the courts ever validated the FTC, a progressive-era contrivance that consolidates executive, legislative, and judicial powers in five commissioners. Under President Joe Biden, three commissioners purported to invalidate millions of private contracts and the laws of 47 states. Consolidation could prevent such overreach.
Moreover, a merger would save money while increasing enforcement. The FTC spends more than $183 million annually on bureaucratic functions unrelated to frontline enforcement, including dozens of employees in the press, legislative affairs, and commissioners’ offices. This figure excludes the policy and adjudicative staffs — the total bureaucratic cost is much higher.
A pending bill, the One Agency Act, would consolidate antitrust functions within DOJ, improving enforcement and paving the way to transfer consumer protection functions.
Regulatory Excess
Upon retaking office, President Donald Trump moved swiftly to reduce regulatory burdens. The White House froze new regulations and repealed Biden’s onerous AI executive order. The FTC “committed to ending all of the rules and regulations that are no longer necessary.” Building on decades of competition advocacy, DOJ launched a task force to combat anticompetitive regulations.
To date, the FTC has moved more cautiously. The FTC is adhering to the restrictive 2023 merger guidelines, promulgated under Biden, and greenlit a new rule for reporting mergers, even as Congress considered a resolution of disapproval.
As the agencies staff up, they should reduce regulatory burdens. The FTC’s original merger form would have imposed annual costs estimated at more than $2.3 billion and the final still imposes expensive reporting burdens. Similarly, the merger guidelines will reduce capital flows and allow the government to block deals without evidence.
By reversing the prior regime, the administration could kickstart the economy and allow U.S. companies to improve their global competitiveness.
With Friends Like These …
For years, Europe has targeted American companies through onerous laws like the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”), Digital Services Tax, General Data Protection Regulation, and AI Act. These laws usually exclude European and Chinese companies from their ambit and have enabled regulators to fine U.S. firms tens of billions of euros for routine conduct, a pure wealth transfer from American workers and shareholders to European bureaucrats. Regarding a multibillion dollar penalty against Apple, Europe noted that its fines “help to finance the [European Union] and reduce the burden for [its] taxpayers.”
Shockingly, the Biden administration supported Europe’s efforts. The antitrust agencies collaborated with foreign regulators and undermined the due process rights of U.S. companies abroad.
Fortunately, Trump changed course. He directed trade officials to discourage improper digital services taxes. At an AI Summit, Vice President J.D. Vance blasted “reports that some foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on U.S. tech companies … excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry.”
The antitrust agencies should combat the global contagion of European-style regulations. They should advocate for sensible competition policy that protects consumers, rather than industrial policy.
The China Challenge
China is spending $1.4 trillion to dethrone America as the world’s technological superpower while also stealing $500 billion annually in U.S. tech secrets. China now leads the U.S. in 57 of 64 critical technologies, including quantum censors, high-performance computing, and AI algorithms. A commission found that China could supplant the U.S. in AI by 2030, and Trump himself called DeepSeek a “wake-up call.”
In response, American companies are investing heavily in new technologies. As China seeks to embed its technology around the globe, Meta is providing open-source AI alternatives. Google is investing $75 billion in AI in 2025 alone. Apple is investing $500 billion in the U.S., and Microsoft recently unveiled the first quantum chip.
At the same time, some policymakers worry that tech platforms may limit speech. Platforms have reduced the spread of certain news stories. Some companies have admitted that they mistakenly bowed to relentless pressure from senior government officials.
Since 2020, the market has evolved: Elon Musk purchased Twitter; Meta adopted Musk’s content moderation model; Trump himself launched Truth Social; and, for better or worse, foreign-owned platforms maintain popularity. Moreover, upon retaking office, Trump signed an executive order prohibiting federal employees from unconstitutionally abridging speech, and the FTC launched a speech inquiry.
Against this backdrop, measured antitrust enforcement appears the wisest course, neither treating tech companies as “national champions” immune to review nor seeking unprecedented punishments. The agencies should enforce the antitrust laws vigorously but allow companies to innovate and invest. In terms of both policy and precedent, does it make sense to dismember Meta over mergers cleared and consummated a decade ago, unwind Microsoft’s vertical acquisition of Activision Blizzard, or break apart Google for overly long exclusive contracts? Such overly aggressive postures could kneecap domestic innovation and signal to foreign governments that they can hammer U.S. companies with impunity.
Trump appears to agree that enforcers should consider the global landscape. He noted that “I give [Google] a lot of credit … [we] want to have great companies — we don’t want China to have these companies.” When asked whether to break up Google, he responded “If you do that, are you going to destroy the company? What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it’s more fair.”
Finally, a measured approach would promote free speech by encouraging the adoption of American technology. Consider the alternative. Chinese AI models actively censor historical events and spread state propaganda. To counter such lies, the U.S. needs the world to adopt American tech.
By tackling America’s most significant challenges, the administration has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to promote investment, preserve technological leadership, and check China’s antidemocratic global ambitions for decades to come.
Asheesh Agarwal served in the first Trump administration.
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