Will U.S. Midterms Put Antitrust Back on Track?

Way back in what now seems like ancient history, in 2024, the antitrust movement was picking up steam around the world.

U.S. competition authorities had launched a wave of cases against dominant companies while their Canadian counterparts were celebrating hard-fought battles to strengthen laws and budgets with the intention of doing the same.

But then Donald Trump took office for the second time and that momentum stopped.

High-profile U.S. cases against the likes of Google, Facebook and Live Nation fizzled and the Paramount-Warner Bros. mega-merger went through, while the Canadian government pivoted to focusing on sovereignty.

With the U.S. mid-terms just a few weeks away and the Democrats looking to take back control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate, it’s worth asking what sort of effect – if any – the impending flip will have on antitrust.

If Trump is reined in, will competition enforcement be back on the menu in the U.S.? And if Congress can staunch some of the hostility the U.S. is showing towards its supposed allies, can those countries – including Canada – get back to focusing on their own internal issues?

Here to answer those questions is David Dayen, executive editor of American Prospect and co-host of the Organized Money podcast.

David is an expert on U.S. antitrust and, while he’s not currently optimistic about the state of competition enforcement right now, he does believe that a Democrat win could blunt some of the current administration’s worst excesses.

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