Washington, D.C. (2/26/2025) – With the confirmations of Andrew Ferguson to lead the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Gail Slater as the head of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division, the Don’t Break What Works campaign urged the Trump administration’s top antitrust enforcers to prioritize consumers, promote competition, and encourage our nation’s innovators.
For over 40 years, American antitrust laws have been centered around the consumer welfare standard, which protects consumers from harmful business practices. However, top antitrust officials have moved away from these long-standing principles in recent years, ignoring decades of established jurisprudence.
This unprecedented new approach to antitrust enforcement has threatened to harm consumers, stifle innovation, and weaken the U.S. economy:
Research has found that overregulation puts Americans at risk. Last year, a report by CCIA’s Research Center found that aggressive antitrust enforcement actions pose a threat to state and local pension plans that at least 28.6 million Americans rely on for retirement income. The report found that “on a per-plan-member basis, successful antitrust litigation would cost the average state and local government employee pension plan member at least $3,015.”
An analysis from the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) found that overly aggressive antitrust enforcement actions risk stifling innovation. Their analysis argues that “FTC and DOJ actions are targeting the wrong industries and that Big Tech is both competitive and innovative…(B)reaking up Big Tech through an antitrust approach raises the question of whether the United States has the potential to innovate more than under its current model, which has so far proved very strong.”
According to R Street Institute, the consumer welfare standard protects consumers from prices and incentivizes innovation. Over-regulation, on the other hand, “negates the efficiencies that allow firms to provide generally affordable products…and creates higher prices for the consumer.” Additionally, competition enforcement actions targeting companies that invest in R&D only “dilute(s) the incentive for innovation.”
Leading antitrust experts and former administration officials agree that the FTC and DOJ’s decision to deprioritize the consumer welfare standard puts consumer and U.S. economic interests at risk:
According to FTC Commissioner Joshua Phillips, the FTC has been “pulling the rug out from under honest businesses.” He continued that the agency has been “removing guidance and failing to replace it – reducing clarity in the application of the law.”
Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton argued last year that the FTC and DOJ’s aggressive antitrust enforcement actions stunt economic growth and hurt consumers, stating that “the idea that you’ve got to prevent mergers in order to help the consumer? I mean – grocery prices in this country have come down dramatically over the last 30 years as a result of consolidation.”
These threats are particularly acute given the ongoing cases against leading American tech companies like Google and Amazon. Such overly aggressive antitrust actions put American consumers and U.S. innovation at risk. Here’s what experts are saying:
The Computer & Communications Industry Association’s President and CEO Matt Schruers has pointed out that the DOJ’s proposed remedies in its case against Google Search would “reshape numerous industries and products, which would harm consumers and innovation in these dynamic markets.”
Additionally, following the government’s release of its proposed framework in the Google Search Case, CCIA Chief Economist Trevor Wagener dissected the potential remedies, describing how some of the government’s most heavy-handed proposals would “increase both the size of new costs and the expected share of those cost increases passed on to consumers, harming consumer welfare considerably.”
Geoffrey Manne and Dirk Auer of the International Center for Law and Economics have pointed out the FTC’s complaint against Amazon “focuses on how hard it is for rivals to reach Amazon’s scale or compete with its huge range of services. But Amazon has succeeded because consumers want those services, and Amazon can provide them better and cheaper than others. We should encourage — not discourage — such conduct. The complaint also relies on economic arguments that stretch the imagination…”
Gail Slater and Andrew Ferguson should put consumers, innovation, and competition first:
Antitrust officials in President Donald Trump’s first term promoted pro-competition, pro-consumer agendas. Former FTC Chair Maureen Ohlhausen stated that overregulation “reduces certainty” in the marketplace. Similarly, former Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Antitrust Division Makan Delrahim asserted that “antitrust enforcement plays an important role in building a less regulated economy in which innovation and business can thrive, and ultimately the American consumer can benefit.” Ultimately, a return to the consumer welfare standard will allow businesses and competition to thrive, lower costs for consumers, and power American innovation.
