DOJ Antitrust Chief outlines “America First Antitrust” philosophy

Slater’s speech¹, entitled “The Conservative Roots of America First Antitrust Enforcement", was her first formal public address since she stepped into the role of AAG in March 2025. If her remarks accurately reflect DOJ policy going forward, we should expect that several of the Biden administration’s antitrust priorities will remain front and center, including monopolization cases against Big Tech companies and others, vigorous merger enforcement, and a continued emphasis on labor market issues.

“America First Antitrust” will target monopoly power to protect the interests of consumers, workers, small businesses, and innovators across the economy

In her remarks at Notre Dame, AAG Slater highlights what she sees as the need for antitrust enforcement to represent America’s “forgotten” consumers, workers, small businesses and innovators.” Slater builds on other recent statements she has made equating the dangers of Big Government and Big Monopoly, and explains that the “ill-gotten monopolies” in today’s economy “are driving a Republican realignment away from big business and – under President Trump’s leadership—toward the working class that is reconnecting the party with its roots, recognizing antitrust as a critical tool in protecting individual liberty.”

According to Slater, America First Antitrust is focused on protecting the interests of “the average American in the heartland,” and she commits to focusing on the markets directly affecting the lives of those consumers and workers. She says that DOJ will stand for those “forgotten by our economic policies for too long,” including small businesses and “Little Tech,” as well as manufacturing and family farms. Slater considers a goal of antitrust enforcement to protect individual liberty from the "tyranny of coercive monopoly power,” and considers this mandate to extend across the economy to encompass issues related to free speech online, housing, health care, groceries, transportation, insurance, entertainment, and “similar markets that directly impact” Americans.

“America First Antitrust” rooted in respect for originalism and legal precedent, and a commitment to law enforcement

According to Slater, antitrust enforcers should maintain a “healthy respect” for “originalism and the rule of law,” and employ a “truly conservative approach” focused on enforcing the laws passed by Congress, “not the laws they wish Congress had passed.” She considers the antitrust “laws on the books” to adequately incorporate prohibitions on price-fixing and concerns with restraints of trade harming both workers and end consumers. Slater describes the “deeply conservative position” that advocates for a “strong commitment” to adhering to judicial precedent: she notes that while “innovations in economic theory and practice may shape more recent law,” they “do not render older precedent a dead letter.” Slater points out that an adherence to precedent and an originalist interpretation of the antitrust laws leads to the conclusion that the antitrust laws protect labor market competition. This implies that Slater agrees with the policy positions DOJ and FTC laid out in the 2023 Merger Guidelines, which relied on older Supreme Court precedents and presumptions of anticompetitive harm rather than newer lower court decisions and economic theory. Moreover, Slater said that DOJ will “stand up for workers when dominant firms impose restraints of trade, whether directly on workers or on the businesses who employ workers,” which was also a theme of antitrust enforcement in the Biden administration.

America First Antitrust prioritizes deregulation in favor of free market competition that enables markets “to regulate themselves”

AAG Slater advocates for antitrust enforcement that emphasizes law enforcement over regulation. She describes America First Antitrust as an enforcement regimen that imposes government obligations on only those parties that violate the law, “and only for a limited time necessary to restore competition.” Characterizing antitrust enforcement as a scalpel and government regulation as a sledgehammer, she rejects ex ante regulations that “cover all parties in an industry for time immemorial”, arguing that such regulations distort the free market rather than “curing diseases that were destroying the market.” Slater cites as an example the regulatory intervention promulgated following the 2008 financial collapse, and queries whether an analysis of how certain financial institutions became “too big to fail” in the first place is more important than a debate about the merits or demerits of the regulations enacted in the wake of the crisis. This likely indicates that DOJ will continue to reject conduct remedies in merger reviews that require ongoing monitoring for compliance with a consent decree.

Conclusion

With her speech at Notre Dame, Slater provided a more comprehensive understanding of how the policies of the “new right” are “driving the realignment in antitrust policy” and providing a roadmap for enforcement in President Trump’s second term. While Slater has sketched a broad antitrust enforcement program that she characterizes as being focused on promoting the interests of the working class and seems consistent with many of the positions taken by the Biden administration, she intends for this to be accomplished by adhering to “conservative principles” such as respect for the rule of law, adherence to judicial precedent, and a commitment to enforcing the antitrust laws in their current form. We will be following DOJ antitrust enforcement developments closely to evaluate how Slater’s understanding of America First Antitrust will play out in enforcement decisions.

Authored by Logan Breed and Jill Ottenberg.