DOJ and FTC Identify 125+ Federal Regulations for Elimination as "Anticompetitive"

The DOJ Antitrust Division and Federal Trade Commission announced they had identified over 125 federal regulations for review and potential elimination under Trump’s Executive Order on Reducing Anti-Competitive Regulatory Barriers. The initiative represents a systematic dismantling of regulatory frameworks across multiple sectors.

Targeted regulations span housing, transportation, food, agriculture, healthcare, energy, and government procurement. The administration framed the effort as removing barriers to competition, though critics noted many targeted regulations actually protect consumers, workers, and small businesses from large corporate actors.

The approach inverts traditional antitrust thinking: rather than using antitrust authority to constrain corporate power, the agencies are using “competition” rhetoric to eliminate regulations that limit corporate behavior. Food safety rules become “barriers to competition in agriculture.” Worker protections become “labor market restrictions.”

The initiative builds on decades of Chicago School economics influence at the agencies, now extended to treating all regulation as presumptively harmful to competition. Consumer advocates warned the approach would result in higher prices, fewer choices, and less innovation as dominant firms face fewer constraints.