A new executive order signed by President Trump reverses an earlier Biden-era executive order that expanded the power of government to go after American businesses under the guise of competition policy.
The new executive order, titled “Revocation of Executive Order on Competition,” revokes Executive Order 14036 (“Promoting Competition in the American Economy”) which was signed by President Biden in 2021. The revocation represents a significant shift in the federal government’s approach to competition policy, moving from heavy-handed government overregulation to a greater embrace of open competition in free markets.
E.O. 14036 laid the groundwork for the Biden administration’s overly hostile approach to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity across many industries and its “big is bad” attitude toward American companies. The order established a “whole-of-government effort,” described by congressional Democrats as “a commitment to use the power of the government,” and created new layers of bureaucracy to target successful businesses.
Biden’s order created a “White House Competition Council,” which was chaired by the Director of the National Economic Council and included the Secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Transportation, as well as the Attorney General and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. This council was granted new powers to regulate companies and their business practices with interagency action.
As a result, E.O. 14036 was the origin of many anti-business regulations later implemented by the Biden administration. For example, the order encouraged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ban noncompete agreements, which would eliminate protections for trade secrets and discourage businesses from investing in their workers. The FTC, then led by Lina Khan, later finalized a rule to implement this ban. The Biden White House explained that the labor provisions of E.O. 14036, such as the noncompete ban, were intended to “complement the President’s call for Congress to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act,” the bloated legislative package proposed by congressional Democrats which seeks to empower labor union bosses at the expense of workers.
Other portions of E.O. 14036 instructed HHS to implement price controls in the medical industry, instructed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reimplement the Obama administration’s “net neutrality” regulations, encouraged the Department of Transportation to micromanage the policies of transportation companies, and placed enhanced scrutiny on M&A within the technology and financial services industries, among others.
In the face of President Biden’s broad, job-killing measures spanning the national economy, President Trump’s executive order is a sigh of relief.
While the ordinary powers of various agencies are maintained as granted under law, the entirety of Biden’s sweeping “whole-of-government” overreach has been revoked. Across industries, President Trump’s executive order demonstrates to workers and businesses alike that the current administration will not support the excessive and anticompetitive burdens placed on them by the previous administration.
“Our markets thrive when they operate freely and when the Federal government does not pick winners and losers but allows businesses to grow and innovate,” wrote FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson following the revocation. “The now-withdrawn Executive Order encouraged top-down competition regulations, and established a flawed philosophical underpinning for the Biden-Harris Administration’s undue hostility toward mergers and acquisitions.”
Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater reacted to the order with similar enthusiasm for the free-market policies championed by President Trump:
“America First Antitrust focuses on empowering the American people in the free markets, not enabling regulators and bureaucrats to prescribe outcomes. We are unleashing the new American Golden Age through antitrust enforcement that removes barriers to innovation and opportunity and limits regulatory burdens on free competition.”
President Trump should be commended for his commitment to removing the barriers to free and open competition imposed by the previous administration. Slashing regulatory burdens and allowing businesses to operate in a free-market environment will help to ensure economic success throughout the second Trump administration while protecting the American worker. These efforts must continue.
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Author: Rowan Saydlowski
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