Why Some Progressives Are ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ About Trump’s Antitrust Agenda
HuffPost
President-elect Donald Trump's picks to police monopolies have pleased people in both parties, but some antitrust crusaders remain skeptical.
President-elect Donald Trump’s top antitrust policy nominees are eliciting praise from anti-monopolists on the right and left, suggesting the bipartisan skepticism of corporate consolidation that gained traction under President Joe Biden — especially in Big Tech — will continue into the next administration.
“Clearly, antitrust reform and taking on corporate monopolies for their predatory behavior that raises prices and stifles innovation is a bipartisan issue that’s also very popular,” said Sacha Haworth, the executive director of the Tech Oversight Project who moonlights as a Democratic campaign strategist. “It’s not something that seems to be on its way out with the outgoing administration.”
Trump has tapped Gail Slater, a former adviser to Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, as assistant attorney general for the antitrust division of the Department of Justice; announced plans to promote Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to chair of the FTC; and selected antitrust attorney Mark Meador to serve as a third Republican member of the FTC.
“The antitrust left should be ecstatic. The ‘Wu & Khan & Kanter’ mugs could be easily turned into ‘Slater & Ferguson & Meador’ mugs,” said Mike Davis, founder of the conservative Internet Accountability Project, referring to memorabilia some progressives made to commemorate Biden’s selections of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Kanter, and Tim Wu as special assistant to the president on technology and competition policy.
Economic progressives derided Trump’s focus on tax cuts for the wealthy and mass deregulation in his first term, and his plans to prioritize similar moves in his second term. These left-of-center advocates are already warning of the potentially disastrous spending cuts that the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory panel co-led by superrich entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, is expected to recommend.
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