ANALYSIS – “America First Antitrust”: The Conservative Revival of U.S. Antitrust under the Trump II Administration, Continuities, Breaks, and Doctrinal Reconfigurations

The Conservative Renewal of U.S. Antitrust under the Trump II Administration, Continuities, Ruptures, and Doctrinal Reconfigurations

François Souty, PhD in Economic History, former senior French civil servant and former Chargé d’Affaires for International Competition at the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission (2021–2024). He teaches Competition Law at Nantes University Law School and Geopolitics at Excelia Business School Group (La Rochelle–Paris Cachan). Author of some fifteen books on antitrust law, competition policy, and economic history, he is a member of the Scientific Council of the Institut Valmy.

Introduction

Since the late 1970s, U.S. antitrust law has been largely structured around the consumer welfare standard, formulated by Robert H. Bork, according to which “the only legitimate goal of antitrust is the maximization of consumer welfare.” We devoted numerous academic articles and books to U.S. antitrust law during the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, notably in Revues Lamy Concurrence and Concurrences. This article resumes that body of work after a long hiatus during our years at the European Commission in Brussels, within the Directorate-General for Competition.

It must be emphasized that this consumer welfare standard, consolidated by the Chicago School, sometimes with nuances beyond the scope of this analysis, shaped federal case law and the decisions of competition agencies for more than four decades.

However, the Biden administration (2021–2024) initiated a significant doctrinal break, promoting a broader conception of antitrust attentive to market structures, innovation, the digital economy and its dominant actors, economic power, and its effects on democracy. The 2024 presidential campaign and the first months of the new Trump administration (2025) revealed the emergence of a populist-conservative antitrust (with “populist” understood in the American sense, quite different from its often pejorative use in France). This populist-conservative antitrust is structured around “America First Antitrust”, combining conservative legal orthodoxy with a critique of private economic power, extending or resembling the antitrust approach promoted by the Biden administration.

This dynamic is particularly visible in the positions taken by J.D. Vance, Vice President of the United States, and in the institutional action of Gail Slater, appointed Assistant Attorney General and head of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) in March 2025, and Andrew N. Ferguson, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) since January 2025. The DOJ and the FTC are the two federal authorities responsible for antitrust enforcement.

I. The Doctrinal Foundations of U.S. Antitrust and Their Recent Challenge

This section situates recent developments within the long-term doctrinal evolution of U.S. antitrust law and introduces three sub-sections: the consumer welfare standard paradigm, the neo-Brandeisian turn, and J.D. Vance’s convergence with Lina Khan.

a. The “Consumer Welfare Standard” Paradigm

Robert Bork argued that any goal other than consumer welfare would lead antitrust into “a policy at war with itself.” Richard Posner extended this thesis by emphasizing that “any enforcement must focus on measurable effects on prices and output.” This vision shaped federal case law and ensured a high degree of legal predictability. In summary, this paradigm provided strong legal certainty, but at the cost of increased tolerance for economic concentration and the rise of national champions whose market capitalizations made them the world’s largest firms, particularly in the digital economy (GAFAM and NATU).

b. The Post-Chicago Turn and the Neo-Brandeisian Revival

With the rise of digital markets and giant platforms, Lina Khan criticized the traditional approach: “modern antitrust law’s fixation on short-term price effects has blinded enforcers to the ways dominant firms entrench their power.” Tim Wu and Sandeep Vaheesan—respectively a Columbia Law School professor and former member of President Biden’s National Economic Council, and Legal Director of the Open Markets Institute—also emphasized the importance of a structural and political reading of antitrust, justifying particular attention to the neo-Brandeisian current that strongly revived antitrust during the Biden administration.

The neo-Brandeisian movement takes its name from Louis Brandeis, a Supreme Court Justice in the early twentieth century, renowned for his opposition to excessive economic concentration and his insistence on the social and political dimensions of the economy. The contemporary school revives and modernizes his legacy in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, criticizing the traditional consumer-welfare-centered approach that limits antitrust to protecting consumers through prices and output.

Neo-Brandeisianism holds that concentrated economic power is not merely a price problem: it generates risks for democracy, individual freedom, innovation, and labor markets. It advocates a structural and systemic reading of markets, in which size, dominance, and vertical integration are indicators of excessive control, even in the absence of immediate price increases. Its proponents, including Lina Khan and Tim Wu, focus on large digital platforms and technological monopolies, denouncing value capture, control of information, and the standardization of consumer behavior. The movement also argues that antitrust should promote real competition and preserve entrepreneurial space for small and medium-sized enterprises, while safeguarding economic and cultural diversity.

Doctrinally, neo-Brandeisianism renews antitrust law by broadening its tools: it integrates structural, behavioral, and sectoral analyses, values in-depth economic investigations, and justifies more ambitious preventive interventions. Operationally, it translates into more proactive merger control, closer scrutiny of dominant platforms, and a willingness to rebalance power between economic actors, workers, and consumers. In short, neo-Brandeisianism constituted a critical and modernized rereading of U.S. antitrust, centered on limiting excessive economic power, protecting innovation, and defending economic democracy, while moving beyond price alone as the criterion for evaluating the legitimacy of business practices.

Under the Democratic Biden administration, this shift marked the return of a substantive antitrust, attentive not only to prices but also to economic power dynamics and the protection of long-term innovation and consumer interests. It was integrated into a genuine digital industrial policy, even though this policy did not translate into legislation due to the Democrats’ lack of a sufficient majority in both chambers of Congress.

c. Vice President J.D. Vance’s Convergent Statements with FTC Chair Lina Khan

During the 2024 campaign, J.D. Vance stated: “Lina Khan has correctly identified the real problem of concentrated corporate power in modern America,” adding that “the diagnosis of monopoly power is often right, even if I reject some of the progressive prescriptions.” This momentary convergence with the neo-Brandeisians of the Democratic administration—largely unknown in Europe, especially in France—illustrates the permeability between neo-Brandeisian critique and populist conservatism, which has become a structural feature of the “America First Antitrust” doctrine under the Trump II administration since January 2025. This rapprochement reflects an unprecedented intellectual dialogue between traditionally opposed approaches, something unseen before the first Trump administration in 2017.

Vance possesses a strong economic culture, reflected in several of his writings. His economic thinking is rooted in a populist-conservative critique of orthodox economic liberalism. He challenges the idea that concentrated markets are necessarily efficient and beneficial in the long run, arguing that the dominance of a few large firms weakens competition, innovation, and social cohesion. For Vance, excessive economic power is not only an economic issue but also a political and cultural one, as it reduces the autonomy of citizens, workers, and local communities. In this perspective, he shows a marked interest in antitrust law as a legitimate tool for limiting private power and restoring competitive capitalism. He favors stronger enforcement against large platforms and dominant firms, even when anticompetitive effects do not immediately translate into price increases. While rejecting state economic planning, Vance advocates a strategic state capable of targeted intervention to preserve competition, economic sovereignty, and the national interest.

II. J.D. Vance and the Trump II Administration: The Emergence of a Populist-Conservative Antitrust

This section examines how J.D. Vance translated these doctrinal analyses into political orientation, through a critique of private economic power and selective public intervention, and also presents a significant network of personnel and institutional relays within the federal administration and the business world.

a. The critique of private economic power and a selective, minimalist conception of public intervention

In an interview given while serving as a U.S. Senator and as a candidate for the vice-presidency, J.D. Vance stated that “monopoly power is not just an economic problem; it is a political and cultural one,” explicitly targeting digital platforms. In his view, such firms are capable of shaping social and political norms, which justifies a firm antitrust policy. Antitrust thus becomes an instrument for limiting private power when that power is perceived—or can reasonably be perceived—as coercive and therefore contrary to the national interest.

In that same interview, Vance spoke explicitly about the need to curb the power of major technology companies, declaring that “Google and Facebook have really biased our political process,” and suggesting that competition must be strengthened so that new entrants can “change things.” This critique directly links the concentration of economic power to political and democratic effects, constituting an implicit antitrust philosophy that would later be logically developed by Gail Slater and Andrew Ferguson.

Regarding public intervention, Vance specifies that the state must not serve as a “substitute for democratic decision-making or industrial planning,” expressing hostility toward generalized ex ante regulation. This selective approach defines populist-conservative antitrust: targeted intervention combined with deep skepticism toward broad, permanent regulatory frameworks.

b. J.D. Vance’s network and antitrust expertise within his political entourage (2021–2025)

Since entering the U.S. Senate in 2023, J.D. Vance has gradually assembled a network of collaborators and advisers combining legal, economic, and political expertise. This network was strengthened during his 2024 presidential campaign and consolidated following his appointment to the vice-presidency in 2025.

At the core of this network stands Gail Slater, who initially served as Vance’s economic policy adviser in the Senate and during his campaign. She represents a central and likely durable pillar of the Republican administration. A lawyer by training with deep exposure to microeconomic analysis, Slater possesses extensive experience in competition law, acquired at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on merger and antitrust investigations, at the National Economic Council, and within one of the most powerful Senate committees. In her policy speeches, she articulated the doctrine of “America First Antitrust,” designed to combine the protection of competition with the defense of U.S. strategic economic interests.

Among Vance’s principal collaborators at the White House is Sean J. Cooksey, appointed Counsel to the Vice Presidentin January 2025. A lawyer and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, Cooksey is responsible for providing strategic legal advice to the Vice President and plays a central role in coordinating legal and regulatory policy.

In the legislative and antitrust domain, James Braid, formerly Vance’s Senate Chief of Staff, now heads the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House. He actively participated in reintroducing legislative proposals aimed at strengthening oversight of major digital platforms. James Lloyd, Vance’s former Deputy Policy Director and former head of the Antitrust Division of the Texas Attorney General’s Office, brings valuable state-level expertise to federal antitrust policy. Jacob Reses, Vance’s strategic Chief of Staff, ensures political coordination and the integration of antitrust and economic dimensions into the Vice President’s decision-making.

Vance’s broader network also includes more peripheral but influential figures connected to antitrust policy, such as Andy Baker, a former national security adviser to Senator Vance, and experts from think tanks and former DOJ and FTC officials, including Todd Zywicki and Alex Okuliar, who operate within the circles shaping competition and economic policy.

Taken together, this network reflects a strategy of assembling multidisciplinary expertise around Vance, combining:

• legal and regulatory competence (Cooksey, Slater),
• economic and legislative policy experience (Braid, Reses, Lloyd),
• and access to specialized antitrust and digital-market expertise from the business and think-tank community.

This structure, consolidated across the Senate, the presidential campaign, and the White House, has enabled Vance to orient and influence federal antitrust policy, particularly with regard to digital markets, strategic mergers, and the protection of national supply chains.

III. Gail Slater at the DOJ and Andrew N. Ferguson at the FTC:

The Doctrinal Formalization of “America First Antitrust” under the Trump II Administration**

This section details, on the one hand, Gail Slater’s specialized professional background in antitrust and the operational characteristics of the doctrine she articulated, beginning with her founding speech. On the other hand, it presents a parallel analysis of Andrew N. Ferguson’s leadership of the FTC, marked by a prolonged phase of institutional restructuring amid an intensely political confrontation between the Republican and Democratic parties.

A. Gail Slater, Assistant Attorney General and Head of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice

a. Career background and institutional position

Gail Slater, appointed Assistant Attorney General in March 2025, previously served at the FTC during the first Trump administration (2017–2019), in the private sector, and again in the Trump administration (2019–2020). She possesses a cumulative expertise in law, economics, and competition policy. This profile gives institutional legitimacy to the DOJ’s simultaneously conservative and interventionist orientation.

b. The founding speech of April 2025 and the operational features of the doctrine

In her first major speech at Notre Dame Law School, Slater declared:

“America First Antitrust is about enforcing the law as written, to protect competition and individual liberty, not about redesigning markets from Washington.”

She emphasized respect for statutory text, precedent, and disciplined enforcement. This speech marked the first formal articulation of the “America First Antitrust” doctrine. Slater specified that antitrust enforcement must be “focused, disciplined, and grounded in precedent.” The emphasis lies on ex post enforcement and the targeting of manifest violations, while indirectly protecting consumers and small businesses. In summary, “America First Antitrust” is characterized by legal precision and conservative grounding, but in a far more sophisticated and open manner than is often assumed in Europe regarding the Trump administration’s conservatism.

c. Leadership of the DOJ Antitrust Division under Gail Slater

Slater embodies a doctrinal orientation that seeks to reconcile strengthened competition law enforcement with a reading firmly rooted in U.S. economic nationalism and industrial sovereignty. A highly respected jurist, she brings a dense regulatory background: former legal adviser at the National Economic Council, Senior Counsel to the U.S. Senate(notably the Senate Commerce Committee), and private-sector practitioner on complex competition and regulatory matters. This allows her to pursue a strategic and operational approach to antitrust.

In her 2025 policy speeches, Slater explicitly defends an “America First Antitrust” doctrine that treats competition law as an instrument for combating excessive concentration, protecting domestic supply chains, and limiting the economic power of major digital and technology platforms.

Since her founding address in April 2025 at the University of Notre Dame Law School, Slater has framed antitrust as a strategic tool to promote competition and innovation. In this view, antitrust is not merely punitive but a means to ensure market access for small firms and to compel dominant players to compete through innovation rather than exclusion. This vision, reiterated at the Fordham Competition Law Institute and other academic and professional forums in 2025, establishes the basis for dynamic enforcement in digital and emerging markets.

A central pillar of her doctrine is the promotion of free markets and competitive diversity. Speaking at the Georgetown Law Global Antitrust Enforcement Symposium, Slater emphasized that antitrust must enable “little tech, big tech, and everything in between” to compete on fair terms. Antitrust thus becomes a driver of innovation rather than a regulatory constraint, ensuring that dominant firms cannot suffocate emerging initiatives.

Slater also situates her action within a historical and institutional continuity, recalling that every generation has relied on the DOJ to contain industrial monopolies. Today’s digital platforms are, in her view, the equivalent of Standard Oil or AT&T, justifying a similarly forceful antitrust response. Antitrust becomes a structural instrument of market protection, regulating markets while preserving free-market logic and entrepreneurial dynamism.

Her doctrine also extends beyond digital markets to traditional sectors such as agriculture, asserting that:

“The United States created a third way. Let the American people run the economy through their choices in the free markets while enforcing antitrust laws to protect competition.”

This demonstrates a commitment to preserving economic pluralism, consumer protection, and strategic coherence across all DOJ interventions. Slater’s doctrine thus represents a synthesis of legal rigor, economic vision, and historical continuity under the Trump–Vance administration.

Slater’s intellectual project lies at the intersection of legal originalism and conservative textualism, Chicago School economic analysis, and populist-Brandeisian traditions aimed at protecting competition and innovation against excessive concentration and digital “gatekeepers.” In the broader ideological framework of American conservative populism, antitrust is presented not merely as a technical regulatory tool but as an instrument of citizen protection and economic liberty, giving the fight against monopolies a patriotic and positive meaning.

d. The leadership team of the DOJ Antitrust Division under Gail Slater

Slater is supported by several Deputy Assistant Attorneys General (DAAGs) with highly specialized profiles, reflecting institutional continuity and doctrinal pluralism:

This team illustrates a multidimensional antitrust strategy combining legal, economic, criminal, and international expertise, aligned with the growing complexity of digital and global markets.

IV. Andrew N. Ferguson and the Federal Trade Commission in 2025

a. A professional background shaped by judicial and legislative experience

Whereas Gail Slater’s trajectory is marked by executive and private-sector antitrust practice, Andrew Ferguson’s senior-level career has been shaped primarily within the judicial and legislative spheres. Confirmed by President Trump as Chairman of the FTC in January 2025, Ferguson had already been appointed FTC Commissioner (on the Republican quota) in 2024 at the end of the Biden administration. His elevation to Chair therefore represents a form of bipartisan continuity that is often ignored in European commentary on the Trump administration, even though President Trump did dismiss two Democratic commissioners in April 2025.

Ferguson previously served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and as legal counsel to the highly influential Senate Judiciary and Antitrust Committee. His career, characterized by formalism and institutional caution, decisively shapes the FTC’s approach to competition policy for the coming four to five years.

b. A predictable line of stability and clear substantive priorities

Ferguson has stated that:

“The FTC must bring tough cases where the law supports them, and not gamble with enforcement theories untethered from precedent.”

This reflects a commitment to clear and predictable application of the law. His presidency is marked by a cautious but firm enforcement philosophy. From the outset, Ferguson made clear that digital markets and labor markets would remain enforcement priorities, with interventions grounded in solid legal foundations. The FTC thus continues to fulfill its competition mandate through a structured, methodical approach, operating—at least in principle—within a bipartisan Commission, which remains important for close observers of the U.S. federal machinery.

c. Composition of the FTC under Chairman Ferguson: a temporarily reduced Commission

Under Andrew N. Ferguson’s leadership, the FTC in 2025 operates in an institutional configuration marked by the search for balance between antitrust expertise and political pluralism, albeit with a temporary suspension of the agency’s traditional bipartisan equilibrium.

A lawyer by training, Ferguson brings substantial experience in competition and public litigation, notably as Solicitor General of Virginia, legal adviser to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Supreme Court law clerk. This background informs a formalist yet structurally attentive approach to defining and enforcing antitrust law.

Alongside the Chairman sits Melissa Holyoak, a Republican commissioner from March 2024 until her appointment as interim U.S. Attorney for Utah in the fall of 2025. A former Solicitor General of Utah, she brought strong public-law litigation experience to the Commission, including in competition and consumer protection matters, and was known for a pragmatic enforcement style.

The Commission also includes Mark R. Meador, confirmed as Commissioner in April 2025. Meador’s profile is deeply rooted in competition law, with extensive experience in private antitrust litigation, including class actions. Like Ferguson, he brings strong legislative experience from the U.S. Senate, having served as antitrust counsel to Senator Mike Lee. Meador represents a conservative approach favoring rigorous but legally disciplined enforcement of antitrust law, particularly in matters of market power and concentration.

Significantly, Meador—working in intellectual alignment not only with Senator Lee but also with former Senator and now Vice President J.D. Vance—was involved in drafting legislation that would have mandated the structural separation (“break-up”) of Google’s advertising technology business. Notably, the European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen II heavily sanctioned Google for similar conduct in September 2025. This creates potential grounds for future transatlantic convergence in digital competition policy, even if such cooperation remains premature.

A major institutional fault line remains. Until spring 2025, the FTC also included two Democratic commissioners, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro M. Bedoya, both strong proponents of an expansive and dynamic antitrust doctrine reflecting the neo-Brandeisian approach of former Chair Lina Khan. Their dismissal in 2025 triggered a major constitutional and institutional controversy over agency independence and the erosion of the FTC’s bipartisan tradition. As a result, the Commission currently operates with a reduced membership, although three new appointments are expected in 2026.

V. Major Recent Federal Antitrust Cases in the Digital Services Sector

Since 2020, U.S. federal antitrust enforcement has concentrated primarily on digital markets, characterized by high concentration, strong network effects, and deep vertical integration. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has initiated a series of landmark proceedings against the major technology platforms, foremost among them United States v. Google LLC, filed in October 2020 and tried on the merits in 2023–2024. The case concerns Google’s abuse of dominance in online search and search advertising markets.

The DOJ alleges in particular that Google entered into exclusive agreements with device manufacturers and browser developers designed to foreclose market access and neutralize potential competitors, with the explicit objective of obtaining structural or behavioral remedies to restore market contestability.

Building on this approach, the DOJ launched a major action in March 2024 against Apple Inc., accusing the company of constructing a closed ecosystem based on interoperability restrictions, contractual constraints, and technical design choices aimed at excluding competitors in smartphone and digital services markets. This case stands out for its systemic analysis of abuse of dominance, combining economic, technological, and legal elements, and seeks to impose openness and competitive neutrality obligations capable of durably reshaping market structure.

In parallel, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has pursued an active policy regarding the expansion strategies of major digital platforms. The case FTC v. Meta Platforms Inc., initiated in 2020 and reformulated in 2022, represents a landmark attempt to challenge Facebook’s acquisition strategy (Instagram, WhatsApp) ex post, analyzed as a tool for eliminating nascent competition. Although still pending, the case marks a doctrinal shift toward reassessing past mergers in light of their long-term structural effects, regardless of the absence of immediate price increases.

The FTC also filed a major lawsuit against Amazon.com, Inc. in September 2023, alleging self-preferencing, seller lock-in, and manipulation of marketplace rules. This case reflects an expanded antitrust conception that integrates effects on third-party sellers, innovation, and overall market structure beyond price-based consumer welfare. In the same spirit, the FTC’s intervention in the Microsoft/Activision Blizzard transaction (2022), although unsuccessful in court, confirmed heightened scrutiny of vertical mergers and the risks of strategic content foreclosure in digital markets.

The year 2025 marks a new phase with the opening of an antitrust review of the proposed Netflix–Warner Bros. Discovery merger, announced on December 5, 2025. The transaction, valued at approximately $82.7 billion, would involve Netflix acquiring Warner Bros. studios, HBO, and HBO Max following the prior separation of Warner Bros. Discovery’s linear television activities. Given the scale of the transaction and the combination of content production, distribution, and streaming assets, the deal is subject to intensive DOJ and FTC scrutiny under Section 7 of the Clayton Act and the Sherman Act.

The transaction has provoked strong political and institutional reactions. Several members of Congress described it as an “antitrust nightmare,” arguing that it could substantially reduce competition in streaming and premium content markets, lead to higher prices, limit consumer choice, and weaken labor conditions in the cultural industries. Congressional hearings are planned for early 2026, while professional organizations and consumer groups have announced their intention to challenge the merger, highlighting the risks of long-term structural concentration of cultural and economic power.

Table 1 — Biden vs. Trump II Administrations: Antitrust Doctrines and Instruments

Elements	Biden Administration (2021–2024)	Trump II Administration (2025– )
Dominant doctrine	Neo-Brandeisian / Post-Chicago	Populist-conservative (“America First Antitrust”)
Key figures	Lina Khan (FTC), Jonathan Kanter (DOJ)	J.D. Vance, Gail Slater (DOJ), Andrew Ferguson (FTC)
Stated objectives	Economic democracy, market structure, private power	Economic sovereignty, market freedom, anti-monopoly
Analytical standard	Expansion beyond the consumer welfare standard	Expanded but textualist consumer welfare
Primary instruments	Structural litigation, implicit ex-ante regulation	Targeted ex-post enforcement, selective structural remedies
Attitude toward regulation	Favorable to proactive regulation	Skeptical of general regulation
Labor markets	Explicitly integrated into antitrust analysis	Considered as a consequence of market power
Big Tech	Structural and systemic suspicion	Targeted suspicion of durable abuses

Conclusion

U.S. antitrust in 2025 reveals a hybrid doctrinal reconfiguration, combining critical elements of the neo-Brandeisian approach developed under the Democratic Party with an explicitly conservative project now carried by the Republican Party. Taken together, the cases initiated under the “America First Antitrust” doctrine reflect a profound reorientation of U.S. antitrust, aimed less at episodic punishment than at the durable restructuring of digital and media markets, through structural remedies, behavioral injunctions, and a substantive redefinition of competitive illegality.

There is little doubt that these developments will fuel academic and strategic debate in Europe, with the potential for concrete transposition within a few years, possibly under the future European Commission that will succeed the von der Leyen II Commission, which has remained more closely aligned with the neo-Brandeisian approach of the Biden administration.

For European observers, this evolution highlights the plasticity of antitrust as a legal and political instrument, adaptable to ideologically divergent ends while relying on the same statutory foundations. The main differences between U.S. antitrust under the Trump II administration and the competition policy of the von der Leyen II Commission were already outlined in our previous article published by Le Diplomate Media on December 30, 2025.

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1. F. Souty, « Les conséquence possibles de l’élection présidentielle de Donald Trump pour l’antitrust aux Etats-Unis », Contrats, Concurrence, Consommation, Décembre 2016, p. 2. Voir aussi et notamment F. Souty,  « L’Administration Trump et l’évolution de l’antitrust américain », Revue Lamy, 2017, p. 12-25. et «Antitrust, concurrence et innovation: une réflexion sur les fondements et les objectifs d’origine du droit de la concurrence aux Etats-Unis » Revue Lamy Concurrence, septembre 2012, p. 208-225.

• Un porteur essentiel de l’Ecole de Chicago dans le domaine antitrust a été R. H. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself, Free Press, New York, 1978, p. 66-67, 462 p. Sur cet auteur majeur de l’Ecole de Chicago, voir en particulier notre note : F. Souty, « IN MEMORIAM : Robert Heron Bork (1927-2012) », Concurrences, n° 1-2013, pp. 265-270). Voir aussi R. A. Posner, Antitrust Law, 2ᵉ éd., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2001, p. 9-15, 312 p.

^[3]     Voir parmi les principaux penseurs ayant inspiré l’administration Bien, L. M. Khan, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox”, Yale Law Journal, vol. 126, 2017, p. 712, 710-805, https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/amazons-antitrust-paradox. T. Wu, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age, Columbia Global Reports, New York, 2018, p. 3-5, 176 p.

^[4]     U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), nomination de Gail Slater comme Assistant Attorney General à la tête de la Division antitrust, mars 2025, texte en ligne non paginé, https://www.justice.gov/atr.   

^[5]     Federal Trade Commission, Chair Ferguson Welcomes New Commissioners, communiqué officiel, FTC, Washington D.C., avril 2024 ; Andrew N. Ferguson, biographie officielle, FTC.gov.

^[6] R.H. Bork, op.cit.

^[7] R. A. Posner, Antitrust Law, 2ᵉ éd., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2001, 312 p,  V. notamment p. 9-15,

^[8] L. M. Khan, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox”, Yale Law Journal, vol. 126, 2017, p. 712, 710-805, https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/amazons-antitrust-paradox.

^[9] T. Wu, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age, Columbia Global Reports, New York, 2018, p. 3-5, 176 p. Egalement,  S. Vaheesan, Antitrust and Monopoly Power in the Digital Era, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2020, p. 22-30, 224 p.

^[10] J.D. Vance, interview, American Affairs, septembre 2024, texte en ligne non paginé,  https://americanaffairsjournal.org.

^[11] J.D. Vance, discours de campagne, Ohio, octobre 2024, texte en ligne non paginé, https://www.jdvance2024.com. Voir aussi Interview de J.D. Vance sur l’antitrust et la concentration des plateformes numériques, Ohio Capital Journal, 4 mars 2024, texte en ligne (entretien)

^[12] J.D. Vance, déclaration publique lors du débat sur l’antitrust, 12 octobre 2024, texte en ligne non paginé, https://www.jdvance2024.com/debates.

^[13] U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), nomination de Gail Slater comme Assistant Attorney General comme Chef de la Division Antitrust, mars 2025, texte en ligne non paginé, https://www.justice.gov/atr

^[14] G. Slater, « The Conservative Roots of America First Antitrust Enforcement », discours, Notre Dame Law School, 28 avril 2025, texte en ligne non paginé, https://law.nd.edu/events.

^[15] V. Notamment « JD Vance Is Bringing His Senior Senate Staff to His VP Office », https://www.notus.org/trump-transition

^[16] G. Slater, « The Conservative Roots of America First Antitrust Enforcement », discours, Notre Dame Law School, 28 avril 2025, texte en ligne non paginé, https://law.nd.edu/events.

^[17] Ibid. V. aussi G. Slater, biographie professionnelle, DOJ Antitrust Division ; parcours antérieur au National Economic Council, à la FTC, au DOJ, en cabinet privé d’avocats et au U.S. Senate, justice.gov. 

^[18] Ibid.  V. aussi Gail Slater, discours programmatique, “America First Antitrust and the Restoration of Competitive Markets”, Washington D.C., avril 2025, texte intégral publié par le DOJ, env. 18 p., spéc. p. 3–7, https://www.justice.gov/atr.

^[19] Textualisme : méthode d’interprétation juridique selon laquelle le sens d’une loi doit être déterminé à partir du texte, compris selon le sens public et ordinaire des termes au moment de son adoption. Défendue notamment par le juge Antonin Scalia, qui rejetait les interprétations téléologiques ou fondées sur des considérations extratextuelles (A. Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation, 1997). Voir également Frank Easterbrook et Robert Bork, pour qui le textualisme s’accompagne d’une lecture économiciste des lois antitrust (R. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox, 1978, op. cit.).

^[20] Op.cit.

^[21] L’ancien président démocrate de la FTC, Robert Pitofsky, a défendu un retour aux textes et objectifs originels des lois antitrust, en cohérence avec le néo-brandeisisme, visant à préserver la concurrence et protéger les petites entreprises. François Souty rappelait déjà cette influence dans La politique de la concurrence aux États-Unis, Paris, PUF, 1995, coll. Que sais-je?, p. 94, citant Bob Pitofsky : “Ce sont une mauvaise histoire, une mauvaise politique et une mauvaise législation que celles qui excluent certaines valeurs politiques dans l’interprétation des lois antitrust. Par valeurs politiques, j’entends premièrement la crainte d’une concentration excessive du pouvoir économique susceptible de nourrir des pressions politiques antidémocratiques et, deuxièmement, le désir d’accroître la liberté individuelle et professionnelle réduisant la marge d’action par laquelle un petit nombre peut contrôler, au sein de la sphère économique, le bien-être de tous” (R. Pitofsky, « The Political Content of Antitrust », 127, Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Review, p. 1051, 1979). Cette approche des années 1990 a été reprise et intégrée durant la dernière campagne présidentielle de 2023-2024 par J.D. Vance et Gail Slater, illustrant une possibilité de synthèse nationale « bipartisane » sur les sources et le sens de l’antitrust américain. Le texte s’inscrit dans la perspective plus large du populisme conservateur américain, qui associe la protection des marchés concurrentiels à la défense du citoyen et de l’initiative individuelle, redonnant à l’antitrust une dimension à la fois juridique, économique et patriotique.

^[22] Office of Public Affairs, Deputy Assistant Attorneys General – Dina Kallay and Team, U.S. DOJ, mai 2025; expertise en antitrust international et coordination avec autorités étrangères, justice.gov. Aussi, Office of Public Affairs, ibid. (profils de Roger Alford, Omeed Assefi, Mark Hamer, William Rinner et Dr. Chetan Sanghvi), DOJ Antitrust Division, mai 2025 ; détails des responsabilités et spécialités.

^[23] Baker McKenzie, Mark Hamer Appointed Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division, communiqué, 26 mars 2025 ; expérience internationale et contentieux antitrust,  https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/newsroom/2025/03/mark-hamer-us-doj-appointment

^[24] Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Andrew N. Ferguson, président depuis janvier 2025, biographie officielle, https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/commissioners/andrew-n-ferguson.

^[25] Federal Trade Commission, President Biden Names Melissa Holyoak as FTC Commissioner, communiqué officiel, mars 2024 ; Melissa Holyoak, biographie professionnelle, FTC.gov.

^[26] Federal Trade Commission, Chair Ferguson Welcomes New Commissioners, communiqué officiel, FTC, Washington D.C., avril 2024 ; Andrew N. Ferguson, biographie officielle, FTC.gov.

^[27] A. N. Ferguson, discours d’investiture, FTC, 20 janvier 2025, texte en ligne non paginé, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases. A. N. Ferguson, intervention au ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting, avril 2025, texte en ligne non paginé, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/antitrust_law/events/.

^[28] U.S. Senate, Confirmation of Mark R. Meador as Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, avril 2025; Congressional Record, débats de confirmation.

^[29] Federal Trade Commission, Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter – Biography, FTC.gov. Aussi Federal Trade Commission, Commissioner Alvaro M. Bedoya – Biography, FTC.gov ; Politico, “Trump’s FTC Firings Test Agency Independence”, mars 2025.

^[30] U.S. Department of Justice, United States et al. v. Google LLC, Complaint, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 20 octobre 2020, 64 p., §§ 1–20, https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-et-al-v-google-llc. Aussi U.S. Department of Justice, Google Search and Search Advertising Trial, Trial Brief, 2023, sections 2–4, https://www.justice.gov/atr.

^[31] U.S. Department of Justice, United States v. Apple Inc., Complaint, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, 21 mars 2024, 88 p., §§ 1–15, https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-apple.

^[32] Federal Trade Commission, FTC v. Meta Platforms Inc., Amended Complaint, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 2022, 80 p., §§ 3–10, https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/1910134-meta-platforms-inc. Voir également  L. M. Khan, “The FTC’s Antitrust Case Against Facebook”, Columbia Law Review Forum, vol. 122, 2022, p. 56–62.

^[33] Federal Trade Commission, FTC v. Amazon.com, Inc., Complaint, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, 26 septembre 2023, 172 p., §§ 1–25, https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/amazon.

^[34] S. Vaheesan, “Antitrust Remedies for Platform Monopolies”, Harvard Law & Policy Review, vol. 17, 2023, p. 120–135.

^[35] Federal Trade Commission, In the Matter of Microsoft/Activision Blizzard, Administrative Complaint, 2022, §§ 30–55, https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/microsoft-activision.

^[36] Netflix, Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros. Discovery Following Separation of Discovery Global, communiqué officiel (PR Newswire), 5 décembre 2025, transaction valorisée à environ 82,7 milliards USD, https://www.prnewswire.com.

^[37] U.S. Senate – Antitrust Subcommittee, lettres et déclarations publiques relatives au projet Netflix–Warner Bros. Discovery (nov.–déc. 2025) ; Writers Guild of America, Statement on the Acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Netflix, 2025, https://www.wga.org.

^[38] F. Souty, « Politique de concurrence et Antitrust en Europe et aux Etats-Unis – Perspectives transatlantiques et enjeux géopolitiques », Le Diplomate Média, 30 décembre 2025, 

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