Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project today released the following statement in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit to block Lockheed Martin Corporation’s $4.4 billion vertical acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings.

“Blocking the merger of Lockheed-Aerojet Rocketdyne is a critical move by the Federal Trade Commission to protect the American defense industrial base and the taxpayer from the dangerous effects of consolidation,” said Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Aerojet Rocketdyne is the sole remaining independent U.S. supplier of missile propulsion systems, and it is essential to keep that firm independent if we are to have any hope of keeping the missile sector competitive. We have seen too much consolidation here already. When Northrop Grumman took over rocket engine maker Orbital ATK in 2018, it gave the combined firm too much market power. That merger was so egregious that Boeing, a competitor, refused to even bid for the contract to upgrade ICBMs because it couldn’t get engines on equal terms with Northrop, which meant that Northrop can simply set the price for for this massive project. Not only should the Lockheed-Aerojet merger be blocked, but the Northrop-Orbital merger should be unwound.”

For more, see former Economic Liberties fellow Elle Ekman’s piece in The American Conservative.

Read “Courage to Learn: Defense & Aerospace” here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.