Digital Liberty Op-Ed in RealClearMarkets: “A Renegade FTC Undermines the Trump Agenda”

By Rohan Naval

On October 6, 2025, RealClear Markets published an op-ed by Digital Liberty’s Executive Director, James Erwin.  

The piece describes the recent trend of a fringe group of Trump appointees continuing Biden’s expanded antitrust enforcement, which poses immense risks to the booming AI and energy sector.  

The Biden administration, under the direction of the Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, brought several lawsuits against companies extending beyond the consensus “consumer harm” standard. This approach was rejected last November by voters, and continuing these policies is directly in conflict with the Trump agenda.  

The Trump agenda of low taxes, low regulation, energy dominance, and AI leadership is taking shape through legislative and executive action. The last thing America needs is a continuation of the Biden antitrust policy, which targeted the very tech companies investing in AI and energy abundance. 

This new turn by Trump appointees is most concerning as it pertains to the “antitrust” case against Google. The Biden administration sought to break up Google’s search engine, which has reliably beaten competitors for years. Consumers voluntarily choose Google over other search engines and realize several benefits for the choice. The concerning direction in which Trump’s appointees have moved with this lawsuit highlights key issues with the “antitrust” mindset, which looks to punish innovators before helping consumers.  

It is a matter of record that the government’s antitrust case, begun by Biden’s appointees but continued by Trump’s, would cause harm to consumers. They just care more about harming Google than they do about helping consumers.  

Through their decentralized, individual choices, consumers have made it clear that they simply prefer Google search, which indicates that consumers are not being harmed by a monopoly. 

The alarm is not only raised over the continuation of unfounded monopoly claims, but the administration has also opened cases against new companies. The FTC recently opened a case against Amazon, stating that Prime engages in “anticompetitive practices” for advertising its service on Amazon websites as well as saving billing information.  

And yet not only have President Trump’s appointees refused to drop the most egregious Biden cases nine months in, but they have also opened new ones against other successful companies. 

Amazon now faces an FTC lawsuit alleging anticompetitive practices by Prime. The government’s incoherent case alleges that Amazon somehow dupes people into signing up for Prime when they don’t want to (presumably because it is an option on their retail website), and that by saving their billing information for renewals they make it too difficult to unsubscribe. The government also seems to think that saving payment methods between purchases is an unfair barrier to competing retail sites where you must enter your billing information anew when you first use it. 

This lawsuit has the potential to not only take away services from consumers but also targets a company that is currently investing large capital in AI and energy investments across America. Further lawsuits under the guise of “anticompetitive practices” will only harm the AI boom, preventing Americans from realizing one of the greatest leaps in technology in human history. 

Read the whole op-ed here.