Washington, D.C. — A new report released by the American Economic Liberties Project today compares the antitrust records of the Trump-Pence and Biden-Harris administrations, revealing substantial differences in their approaches to addressing America’s monopoly crisis. The report, “Competition at a Crossroads: A Comparative Guide to Recent White House Records on Antimonopoly Policy,” concludes that the Biden-Harris administration has strengthened enforcement against corporate monopolies through landmark lawsuits, rulemaking, and a “whole-of-government” competition strategy, while the Trump-Pence administration, despite initiating significant antitrust cases against Google and Facebook, ultimately struggled to break away from the pro-consolidation orthodoxy that defined earlier decades.

“Undoing decades of harm is a project that takes more than one term, but this report shows that the Biden-Harris administration has delivered a comprehensive approach to fighting concentrated economic power not seen in a generation,” said Laurel Kilgour, Research Manager at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Our report provides an apples-to-apples comparison of this administration’s record to that of the Trump-Pence administration, which made noteworthy strides but largely stayed within a status quo that favored consolidation. During the Biden-Harris administration, enforcers—including FTC Chair Lina Khan, DOJ Antitrust Division’s Jonathan Kanter, and CFPB Director Rohit Chopra—adopted a clear-eyed approach to combat monopoly power and deployed their full statutory authority to make significant progress, resulting in four times as many billion dollar merger challenges brought to trial as the previous two administrations, as well as many tangible wins and quantifiable deterrence of further consolidation.”

“The durability of this progress depends on executive branch commitment— especially in the face of deep-pocketed lawbreakers fixated on kneecapping antitrust law enforcement through constitutional challenges and personnel changes,” added Kilgour. “Moreover, opportunities for robust enforcement in some areas of government remain untapped, leaving the next administration with unfinished business to reorient the economy to benefit all Americans by restoring competition, lowering prices, empowering workers, and spurring entrepreneurship.”

Since 2021, the Biden-Harris administration has taken an aggressive and focused approach to counteract monopolistic practices in critical industries, including tech and healthcare. Their antitrust enforcers have realigned enforcement strategies with statutory text and Congressional intent, and grounded their approach in empirical evidence and market realities rather than abstract economic theories. The Biden-Harris administration:

• Created a White House Competition Council and issued an executive order on competition to initiate a comprehensive “whole of government” approach to promoting fair competition across federal agencies.
• Appointed strong leaders at the FTC and the DOJ Antitrust Division, as well as several other key federal agencies, and created new “chief competition officer” roles within some agencies
• Brought to trial four times as many billion dollar merger challenges as Trump-Pence or Obama-Biden enforcers did;
• Won the first criminal monopolization case in fifty years and the first-ever criminal case against an employer for using “no-poach” agreements (which had prevented nurses for special needs children from finding better wages and working conditions);
• Filed two and half times as many monopolization cases and won the first major monopolization case in a generation;
• Developed new merger guidelines to ensure fidelity to statutory text and precedent, more accurately reflect the empirical realities of how firms do business in the modern economy, and prevent excessive industry consolidation;
• Revamped merger notification procedures on a unanimous, bipartisan basis to expedite merger review through more relevant information collection;
• Actively engaged the public to develop new rules that protect workers and consumers from exploitative practices of dominant corporations, such as banning non-compete clauses, capping credit card late fees, and mandating automatic cash refunds from airlines, as well as rules that protect farmers and ranchers from unfair practices;
• Consistently backed legislation to strengthen antitrust laws, advocating for enduring reforms to counter concentrated power and empower both workers and small businesses.

The report also explains that the Trump administration broke ground by initiating the first major monopolization cases in any industry in two decades, challenging Google and Facebook in court. However, aside from these efforts, their approach fell short. They did not take significant action against rampant consolidation and anticompetitive practices in banking, agriculture, or defense. The administration even dissolved the agency charged with enforcing an antitrust law that provides a “Farmer and Rancher Bill of Rights.” Trump’s enforcers also allowed themselves to be constrained by a narrow “consumer welfare” framework, leading to avoidable court losses and limiting merger enforcement, and even opposed budget increases for antitrust law enforcement in the midst of a historic merger wave. Most appointments to other federal agencies were even worse on competition policy. Moreover, Trump-appointed judges continue to undermine enforcement.

The American Economic Liberties Project first began conducting retrospective assessments of how presidential administrations have approached America’s concentration crisis with a 2021 report, “Courage to Learn,” which documented why wealth and power consolidated under both Republican and Democratic administrations as well as how adherence to a radical ideology called the “consumer welfare standard” subverted President Obama’s public pledges to structure markets to be fairer and more stable. As a result of bad policy choices, over 75% of industries became more consolidated since the beginning of the 21st century, causing extensive harm across America.

The next administration has the opportunity to set America’s course for a generation, establishing a new bipartisan consensus — just as New Dealers did (for the better) starting in the 1930s and neoliberals did (for the worse) starting in the late 1970s. Thus, the new report concludes with a roadmap for building on recent successes while also learning from missteps. It courages the executive branch to take bold action to foster an economy that protects all Americans, strengthens local democratic self-governance, and provides a fair shot at success for businesses of all sizes.

Read the full report, “Competition at a Crossroads: A Comparative Guide to Recent White House Records on Antimonopoly Policy,” here.

Read Economic Liberties’ retrospective report on the Obama-Biden Administration’s antitrust and competition policy, “The Courage to Learn” here.

Learn more about how concentrated economic power causes a broad range of societal problems and injustices 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.