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federal trade commission
Big Business Rejoices as Trump Scraps Biden Order Combating 'Excessive Concentration of Industry'
One critic called the president's move a "signal to monopolists that they have a clear path."
Aug 15, 2025
US President Donald Trump continued taking a hatchet to his predecessor's antitrust legacy this week by rolling back an executive order that affirmed the federal government's responsibility to "enforce the antitrust laws to combat the excessive concentration of industry, the abuses of market power, and the harmful effects of monopoly and monopsony."
Trump's revocation of former President Joe Biden's 2021 order drew enthusiastic applause from the largest corporate lobbying organization in the United States.
Sean Heather, the US Chamber of Commerce's senior vice president for antitrust, declared that by repealing the Biden order—which was titled "Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy"—Trump "has rightfully chosen vigorous competition that entrusts American consumers to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, not more government bureaucracy."
One anti-monopoly advocate, Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project, mockingly congratulated Trump for "securing the approval of the US Chamber of Commerce in repealing Biden's executive order saying competition is good."
The American Prospect's David Dayen called the president's move a "signal to monopolists that they have a clear path."
The president's decision was also welcomed by officials within the Trump administration who are tasked with enforcing the nation's antitrust laws, including Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson and the head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, Gail Slater.
Ferguson claimed in a statement Thursday that the Biden order reflected the previous administration's "undue hostility toward mergers and acquisitions"—an assertion that Open Markets Institute legal director Sandeep Vaheesan refuted in a social media post, citing recent trends in merger enforcement actions.
Andrew Ferguson's claims re Biden admin are disconnected from the truth
- "Top-down competition regulations" were agencies reviving dormant statutory powers granted by Congress
- "Undue hostility toward M&A" is just not reflected in numbers on mergers and enforcement activity https://t.co/eHFyBm9tVk pic.twitter.com/PvCcsmvV8q
— Sandeep Vaheesan (@sandeepvaheesan) August 14, 2025
Biden administration antitrust officials—principally former FTC Chair Lina Khan and former DOJ Antitrust Division head Jonathan Kanter—drew praise across the political spectrum for combating corporate abuses and unlawful consolidation.
But during the first six months of his second term, Trump and his handpicked agency heads have settled or dropped key merger challenges brought by the Biden administration, ceding repeatedly to well-connected corporate lobbyists and allowing giant companies such as UnitedHealth to continue absorbing their competitors.
According to a newly updated tally by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, Trump administration agencies have thus far dropped enforcement actions against at least 165 companies.
"Pro-monopoly and pro-concentration of corporate power and control. Those are the policies the Trump admin has espoused in firing fair competition enforcers and revoking an executive order to revitalize fair competition across markets," the Open Markets Institute said Thursday. "And prices are still sky high. No surprise."
Sean Heather, the US Chamber of Commerce's senior vice president for antitrust, declared that by repealing the Biden order—which was titled "Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy"—Trump "has rightfully chosen vigorous competition that entrusts American consumers to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, not more government bureaucracy."
One anti-monopoly advocate, Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project, mockingly congratulated Trump for "securing the approval of the US Chamber of Commerce in repealing Biden's executive order saying competition is good."
The American Prospect's David Dayen called the president's move a "signal to monopolists that they have a clear path."
The president's decision was also welcomed by officials within the Trump administration who are tasked with enforcing the nation's antitrust laws, including Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson and the head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, Gail Slater.
Ferguson claimed in a statement Thursday that the Biden order reflected the previous administration's "undue hostility toward mergers and acquisitions"—an assertion that Open Markets Institute legal director Sandeep Vaheesan refuted in a social media post, citing recent trends in merger enforcement actions.
Andrew Ferguson's claims re Biden admin are disconnected from the truth
- "Top-down competition regulations" were agencies reviving dormant statutory powers granted by Congress
- "Undue hostility toward M&A" is just not reflected in numbers on mergers and enforcement activity https://t.co/eHFyBm9tVk pic.twitter.com/PvCcsmvV8q
— Sandeep Vaheesan (@sandeepvaheesan) August 14, 2025
Biden administration antitrust officials—principally former FTC Chair Lina Khan and former DOJ Antitrust Division head Jonathan Kanter—drew praise across the political spectrum for combating corporate abuses and unlawful consolidation.
But during the first six months of his second term, Trump and his handpicked agency heads have settled or dropped key merger challenges brought by the Biden administration, ceding repeatedly to well-connected corporate lobbyists and allowing giant companies such as UnitedHealth to continue absorbing their competitors.
According to a newly updated tally by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, Trump administration agencies have thus far dropped enforcement actions against at least 165 companies.
"Pro-monopoly and pro-concentration of corporate power and control. Those are the policies the Trump admin has espoused in firing fair competition enforcers and revoking an executive order to revitalize fair competition across markets," the Open Markets Institute said Thursday. "And prices are still sky high. No surprise."
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'Corporate Crime Pays' Under Trump as His Agencies Drop Enforcement Against 165 Companies
"The Trump administration is protecting lawbreaking corporate insiders from accountability instead of protecting Americans from corporate lawbreaking," said the author of a new Public Citizen report.
Aug 14, 2025
During the first six months of his second term, President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn or suspended enforcement actions against 165 companies in sectors across the U.S. economy, with Big Tech benefiting most from federal agencies' lax approach to corporate crime.
A report released Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that the Trump administration has halted or ended a third of misconduct investigations and enforcement actions targeting technology firms—including behemoths such as Meta, Tesla, and Google.
Both Meta and Google donated to Trump's inaugural fund, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent big in support of the president's 2024 White House bid. Public Citizen found that the tech corporations that have benefited from Trump administration decisions to drop enforcement efforts have spent a combined $1.2 billion trying to influence the president.
"The Trump administration is protecting lawbreaking corporate insiders from accountability instead of protecting Americans from corporate lawbreaking," said Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen and author of the new report. "To Big Tech corporations, this sends the message there is little risk in breaking the law in pursuit of profit—especially if you are an ally of the administration."
"For insiders," Claypool added, "corporate crime pays."
"Although he pretends to be tough on Big Tech, Donald Trump is a willing enabler of Big Tech's wrongdoing."
Public Citizen's report comes amid growing scrutiny of what one critic recently described as "the incredible shrinking Trump antitrust enforcers."
Despite claims of a "surging MAGA antitrust movement," Trump's Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have repeatedly shown a willingness to bow to White House-connected lobbyists and allow corporate consolidation to proceed unabated. Last week, as Common Dreams reported, the Trump DOJ settled a Biden-era legal challenge against UnitedHealth Group, allowing the monopolist to swallow yet another competitor.
"The second Trump administration has now become a pay-to-play operation where influential MAGA lobbyists paid millions by large corporations use their clout with the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi to overrule the enforcers and push through mergers," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote following news of the UnitedHealth settlement.
"It seems that if you're a company and can pony up the money," Dayen added, "you can get whatever regulatory treatment you wish. Bribery has gone in a few short months from a prohibited activity to the coin of the realm in Trump's America."
As Public Citizen's report showed, tech giants have been the chief beneficiaries of what the group characterized as the Trump administration's corrupt approach to corporate crime enforcement.
At the start of Trump's second term, at least 104 tech corporations faced more than 140 federal investigations and enforcement actions. The Trump administration has withdrawn or halted nearly 50 of those enforcement actions, Public Citizen found.
"Although he pretends to be tough on Big Tech, Donald Trump is a willing enabler of Big Tech's wrongdoing," Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement. "For Big Tech, a relative pittance in political spending has generated gigantic returns in dropped prosecutions, policy U-turns, and aggressive administration support for Big Tech's global agenda."
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Lina Khan Slams Trump FTC for Giving Oil Executives a Free Pass After Price-Fixing Scandal
Khan accused the administration of "letting off the hook oil executives caught trying to collude with foreign countries to inflate how much people pay at the pump."
Jul 18, 2025
A ban imposed last year by top antitrust enforcer Lina Khan under the Biden administration had stopped two fossil fuel CEOs accused of colluding on oil prices from serving on powerful corporate boards, with the Federal Trade Commission saying at the time that the order would "help ensure American consumers benefit from lower prices at the pump."
But the Trump administration on Thursday signaled no interest in ensuring oil companies won't engage in price-fixing and collusion to boost profits at the expense of working families as the FTC overturned the order that prevented former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield and Hess CEO John Hess from serving on the boards of ExxonMobil and Chevron, respectively.
Exxon bought Pioneer for $59.5 billion last year, while Chevron's purchase of Hess was announced Friday after months of arbitration proceedings.
The FTC, now led by pro-corporate Republican Andrew Ferguson, said the commission's complaints about Sheffield's and Hess's communications with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) did not "plead any antitrust law violation" or show that the acquisitions of the smaller companies and the CEO's positions on the boards "would be anticompetitive."
The decision, said Elyse Schupak, a policy advocate with Public Citizen's Climate Program, "undermines accountability for the CEOs accused of illegally colluding with OPEC to increase profits by driving up energy prices for American families and businesses."
Khan's investigation last year found the Sheffield had communicated with OPEC about slashing oil production and driving up consumer prices while claiming Biden administration policies were to blame, prompting U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) to say "jail time should seriously be considered" for the CEO.
"The FTC needs to be doing more to fully rout out Big Oil's anticompetitive behavior. But Ferguson has moved the FTC in the complete opposite direction."
The FTC also found that Hess "stressed the importance of oil market stability and inventory management and encouraged [OPEC] officials to take actions on these issues and speak about them at different events."
One analysis by Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project found that price-fixing schemes by corporations—not inflation—were to blame for 27% of the higher prices American families faced in 2021.
Khan on Thursday accused President Donald Trump's FTC of "letting off the hook oil executives caught trying to collude with foreign countries to inflate how much people pay at the pump."
The commission's three Republican members voted to allow Sheffield and Hess to serve on the boards—even as one of them, Commissioner Mark Meador, said that OPEC operates "as a de facto cartel" and warned the FTC "should not hesitate to bring enforcement actions against actual collusion."
Ferguson, meanwhile, claimed that banning Sheffield and Hess from the company boards "would damage the FTC's credibility and undermine its mission"—a statement that was denounced by the government watchdog Revolving Door Project.
"Banning a C-suite executive who tried to inflate oil prices isn't the move that 'damages' the FTC's credibility. It's Andrew Ferguson's willingness to absolve such actions that undermines the agency's mission to promote competition," said the group.
"The FTC needs to be doing more to fully rout out Big Oil's anticompetitive behavior," added Revolving Door Project. "But Ferguson has moved the FTC in the complete opposite direction—signaling to corporate America that they won't be held accountable for fleecing the public."
Schupak said that "while the Trump administration feigns interest in bringing energy prices down, its policies—fast-tracking export projects, rolling back regulatory safeguards, and halting enforcement actions for corporate wrongdoing—reveal the administration is far more interested in boosting the profitability of the oil and gas industry than providing Americans any relief or safeguarding them against corruption."
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