“America First” antitrust enforcement is not regulation, DOJ official says

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By Jody Godoy

(Reuters) -The head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division laid out a vision for “America First” antitrust in her first public speech on Monday, calling it a way to prevent corporate regulation.

Robust antitrust enforcement, including merger enforcement, is necessary as a check on the free market that will ultimately benefit consumers, Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater said in remarks prepared for delivery at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. “Antitrust in the United States is law enforcement. It is not regulation,” she said.

The remarks show Trump’s antitrust enforcers plan to forge ahead, despite previous expectation by critics of President Joe Biden’s strong approach to antitrust in the corporate world that enthusiasm for blocking mergers and challenging alleged monopolies would cool under the Republican president.

Antitrust enforcement “is America First conservatives’ preferred approach to cure market ills,” and can prevent the need for regulation of industries after they become too consolidated, Slater said.

Slater and Andrew Ferguson, her counterpart at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, have called on businesses and the public to identify regulations that thwart competition so they can potentially be repealed.

The DOJ antitrust head also said that Big Tech monopolies “are driving a Republican realignment away from big business and — under President Trump’s leadership — toward the working class that is reconnecting the party with its roots,” according to her remarks.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)