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Over the last several weeks, the Trump administration has aggressively brought pro-consumer populism back to antitrust policy.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s antitrust efforts have operated on two tracks. On one of these tracks, regulators are pressing forward with long-awaited cases against the likes of Apple \u2014 efforts aimed at curbing platform dominance and restoring competition in digital markets.<\/p>\n On the other, they\u2019re putting an end to the antitrust legacy of Biden FTC chief Lina Khan, who was accused of weaponizing lawsuits<\/a> against businesses the Biden administration didn\u2019t like.<\/p>\n Cracking down on abusive tech companies and ending Biden and Khan\u2019s lawfare are viewed inside the administration as pro-consumer. In the past, consumer welfare has been the heart of antitrust enforcement and the focus of agencies like the FTC.<\/p>\n On the first antitrust track, the Trump administration has been pursuing anticompetitive behavior by big tech companies. That includes through the Justice Department\u2019s monopolization case against Apple<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to recent filings, Apple is pushing back aggressively<\/a> against the government\u2019s requests, arguing that the DOJ is seeking sweeping internal documents and data that go far beyond what is necessary to litigate the case.<\/p>\n The DOJ hasn\u2019t backed down. In its response, the government notes that extensive discovery is necessary<\/a> because otherwise Apple could hide the very evidence needed to determine if its actions are lawful.<\/p>\n For now, the case is moving forward, and it\u2019s not the only one. Last year, the DOJ won significant remedies<\/a> against Google for anticompetitive actions in the search services and AI markets.<\/p>\n The message is that if big tech uses its size and clout to strangle markets and bilk consumers, the government is going to come down on them. Ending Biden\u2019s Lawfare Legacy<\/strong><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s government has also made progress toward ending the Biden lawfare legacy. This is especially true at the FTC, where Khan has been replaced by Andrew Ferguson, who favors a more traditional antitrust approach.<\/p>\n Ferguson, for example, quickly ended an FTC lawsuit against Pepsi because the company was offering consumers lower prices<\/a> at big box stores like Walmart, which the Biden administration perceived as discriminatory and against antitrust law.<\/p>\n Ferguson noted at the time, \u201cTaxpayer dollars should not be used for legally dubious partisan stunts.\u201d<\/p>\n Between November 2024 and January 2025, Biden\u2019s FTC initiated or referred<\/a> at least 10 enforcement actions, an unprecedented blizzard on the way out the door. Many of these have since been eliminated by Ferguson, though he is still working through some of them.<\/p>\n One holdout is the Biden administration\u2019s case against Southern Glazer\u2019s, a wine and liquor distributor, which has attracted significant legal attention<\/a> over the last several weeks due to recent court actions. This lawsuit is similar to the Pepsi one, claiming that Southern Glazer\u2019s violated antitrust law by offering discounts to bulk-purchase stores like Costco.<\/p>\n This attack on \u201cprice discrimination\u201d was called out at the time by then-commissioner Andrew Ferguson, who warned<\/a> that the lawsuit could end up doing exactly the opposite of what antitrust enforcement is supposed to achieve by raising prices \u201cfor millions of hardworking Americans.\u201d Ferguson later leveraged the same logic to ax the Pepsi suit when he became FTC chair.<\/p>\n The Southern Glazer\u2019s suit in particular shows just how far the Biden administration sometimes went to advance its anti-business agenda. According to video excerpts from a deposition hearing, released publicly last month, the FTC\u2019s lawyers confirmed<\/a> they could not identify a single diverted consumer or suffering retailer as a result of Southern Glazer\u2019s discounts. The agency also refused to answer<\/a> whether Costco-style bulk pricing leads to cost-savings.<\/p>\n When opining on the Southern Glazer\u2019s case, Fox News commentator and former Member of Congress Jason Chaffetz stated<\/a>, \u201cThere\u2019s no better way to win the working family vote than to get up on stage and declare, \u2018I saved Costco!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEven on the economic front, Biden\u2019s team used lawfare to distract from their inflationary failures,\u201d Breitbart previously quoted<\/a> Trump adviser Bruce LeVell as saying.<\/p>\n The approach under Trump aims at stopping these dubious suits while not letting genuine offenders, such as Big Tech giants, off the hook.<\/p>\n
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