On May 9th, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist sent a letter to the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission urging both agencies to drop residual politically motivated antitrust cases from the Biden era.
The letter explains how several antitrust cases were launched against businesses to scapegoat the private sector for the administration’s economic failures and uncontrolled inflation. The letter calls on the Trump Administration to drop these cases to ensure a business-friendly environment and usher in a true era of economic growth.
The Trump administration can end these politically motivated lawsuits against American companies started by Biden. Several cases have been brought that fail to demonstrate any harm to consumers, revealing the political motivation behind them. To ensure the economy can grow and flourish in the new Golden Age, the DOJ and FTC must drop Biden’s politically motivated cases.
The letter cites numerous examples of the Biden administration weaponizing the FTC and DOJ to go after private businesses and stifle free enterprise with no other plausible motivation besides politics. None of the major cases cited the primary standard for determining whether an antitrust lawsuit is viable–that is, the consumer welfare standard.
The consumer welfare standard focuses on whether consumers face prices above what can be reasonably expected in a competitive market and whether the quality of goods sold has diminished due to market concentration. Despite the accusation of “corporate greed” for persistently high inflation during the Biden years, companies seeking to merge like Krogers and Albertsons, operated with miniscule profit margins.
With the dollar losing 20 percent of its value in Biden’s spending binge, the FTC moved to block the Kroger-Albertsons grocery store merger, claiming that greed had raised food prices despite their razor thin profit margins of 1 to 3 percent vanishing under Bidenflation. It could not be Biden’s anti-energy policies raising the cost of shipping or electric vehicle subsidies inflating the dollar – it had to be a merger of two companies that each controlled less than 15 percent of the market.
The letter also details how the FTC went on a witch hunt against tech companies, seeking to punish them for not abiding by the administration’s attempts to censor and restrict free speech.
Despite no evidence of harm to consumers, Google was deemed a monopoly in search last year. They are now on trial to determine their punishment, which might include losing their search engine or AI development at the precise moment the US needs to lead the world in AI so the Chinese communists do not. Separately, another DOJ case alleges that Google monopolized ad tech, despite not breaking the law to attain its market position. Google is being punished not for holding an unassailable monopoly that harms consumers, but for not being totally obedient to the Biden administration.
Meta also remains under the gun, on trial for supposedly having no competitors. But this is clearly not true as they compete with TikTok, SnapChat, X, and Google-owned YouTube for views and social networking. Like Google, Meta is being punished for not censoring enough conservative speech at the behest of Biden bureaucrats. And again, no harm to consumers has been proven resulting from their non-existent monopoly.
The letter concludes calling for the Trump administration to drop the holdover cases to further bolster the president’s economic agenda and protect the welfare of businesses and consumers. The harm inflicted by the Biden administration can be unwound, which will redound to the benefit of the current administration electorally in the effects it will have on growth and prosperity.
The Left uses the threat of antitrust suits to deflect blame for inflation, impose censorship, force unionization, shake companies down for campaign cash, and advance DEI. Republican administrations should drop these political suits when they inherit them to ensure strong economic growth and job creation. Good policy is good politics – doing the right thing on antitrust by returning to the consumer harm standard and ensuring a level playing field will be rewarded by consumers, workers, and industries at the ballot box.
The Trump administration has already made great strides in reversing the worst policies of the Biden years. But allowing these holdover cases – which are politically motivated, have failed to demonstrate any consumer harm, and seek to deflect blame or impose censorship – threatens to undermine the president’s success before it gets started. I urge you to drop these Biden holdover cases and end the weaponization of government against Biden’s enemies.
The letter can be read here.
