President Trump’s Big Antitrust News
President-elect Donald J. Trump announced today that he will nominate Gail Slater as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice.
The choice is unsurprising. Ms. Slater is an accomplished, deliberate, thoughtful, and well-respected public servant on both sides of the political spectrum who shuns the limelight.
Currently an Economic Adviser on the Senate staff of Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, she was asked just after the election to advise the Trump transition team on antitrust policy. She worked in the first Trump Administration as a Special Assistant to Larry Kudlow, Director of the National Economic Council, and served at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for 10 years.
DC antitrust insiders widely believed that Ms. Slater could have whatever antitrust position she wanted in the incoming administration.
As such, the nomination likely indicates that the Justice Department, not the FTC, will be the focal point for antitrust actions in the new administration. Both the Justice Department and FTC can bring antitrust enforcement actions, an inefficient approach that the incoming administration may support ending as part of the DOGE initiative and related Congressional legislation to do so.
Some progressives are optimistic, even euphoric, with Ms. Slater’s nomination. And some are even cherry-picking parts of the President-elect’s statement to infer that she will continue the policies of controversial FTC Chair Lina Khan, who regularly bashes America’s technology leaders.
President-elect Trump took a different approach in today’s statement saying, “Gail will help ensure that our competition laws are enforced, both vigorously and FAIRLY, with clear rules that facilitate, rather than stifle, the ingenuity of our greatest companies.” And while Chair Khan has bragged about squashing merger activity, there is no indication that President-elect Trump supports that, especially when it involves small- and mid-size businesses.
The second Trump Administration is thus likely to be a more nuanced time for antitrust enforcement, with issues examined more rigorously on a case-by-case and legal basis than they have been over the past four years. And the country will be better for it.