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ARTICLE · 22 JULY 2025

Trump 2025 Antitrust Agenda: Targeting Regulatory Barriers

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Reviving a deregulatory agenda with a new antitrust twist, the Trump administration is using Executive Orders along with DOJ and FTC firepower to challenge entrenched regulatory regimes...

United StatesAntitrust/Competition Law
John J. Kavanagh
John J. Kavanagh
Weisiyu Jiang
Weisiyu Jiang

By John J. Kavanagh & Weisiyu Jiang1

I. Background

Reviving a deregulatory agenda with a new antitrust twist, the Trump administration is using Executive Orders along with DOJ and FTC firepower to challenge entrenched regulatory regimes at both the federal and state levels. This "anti-Big Government" effort signals an aggressive use of federal government power to reshape the boundaries between state authority and national competition policy.

Shortly after taking office, President Trump issued two Executive Orders: EO 14192 in January 2025, directing federal agencies to "alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens placed on the American people"2 and EO 14219 in February 2025, requiring agency heads to initiate a process to review all regulations "subject to their sole or joint jurisdiction for consistency with law and Administration policy." EO 14219 does not specifically cite anticompetitive regulations as a target, but directs the agency heads to identify

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