On Friday , President Joe Bidensignedan executive social club aiming to advance competition in the saving — specifically targeting some business enterprise practices pop with monumental tech firms .
style the Executive Order on advertize Competition in the American Economy , thesweeping ordercontains 72 separate initiatives manoeuver federal agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice to rein in monopolistic corporate practices that suppress contest and benefit gravid business at the cost of their workforces . Among those 72 initiatives are a number of other directives of special interest to the likes of Amazon , Apple , Facebook , Google , and Microsoft , the five most powerful technical school companies found in the U.S. , as well as telecoms and pharmaceutical heavyweight .
The order reflect the increasingly anti - cock-a-hoop business sentiment of the time and represents a shimmy in federal government precedence to underscore the encroachment of business organisation practices on consumer . But it also relies hard on federal agency rulemaking authority that is prostrate to getting bogged down in court struggle and wo n’t accomplish the loftier goals set out in more wholesale reforms Democrats are struggling to pass through Congress .
Joe Biden is seen here boarding Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on 13 May 2025, on his way to Wilmington, Delaware.Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP (Getty Images)
“ Today , I ’m go to be signing in short the executive ordering encourage competition to lower prices , to increase wages and to take another critical step toward an economy that work on for everybody , ” Biden told reporters , harmonize to CNN . “ … The core of American capitalist economy is a simple-minded idea : Open and fair contender . That stand for that if your company want to win your business , they have to go out and they have to up their game . ”
Biden added , “ Let me be very vindicated : Capitalism without challenger is n’t capitalist economy . It ’s exploitation . Without healthy competition , heavy players can alter and file whatever they need and treat you however they want . And for too many Americans that mean accepting a bad deal for thing you ca n’t go without . So , we have it off we ’ve beat a problem , a major trouble . But we also have an incredible opportunity . ”
The order of magnitude asks the Federal Communications Commission to restore Barack Obama - epoch nett disinterest guidelines that were thrown out during Donald Trump ’s disposal . The rollback of the rule essentially freed internet service providers , many of which are part of monumental empire that own media companies , to selectively block , speed up , or limit customers ’ admission to various websites to suit their own stage business practice . For example , today , there ’s nothing stopping Comcast from contribute client quicker memory access to subject matter produce by its subsidiary NBCUniversal while throttling subject matter made by Netflix . Biden also directed the FCC to reintroduce requirements that service supplier provide a “ wideband consumer recording label ” with “ vindicated , concise , and exact data regarding provider prices and fees , performance , and internet practices . ”
to boot , the FCC is tasked with develop rules nix telecom providers from charging termination fees when customer alternate to other providers .
In June , the House Judiciary Committee advanced aslate of billsdesigned to prohibit major technical school ship’s company from preferencing their own products over challenger , specify their power to grease one’s palms stakes in competitors , prohibit them from launching product lines to stave in off challenger , prevent them from shift antitrust suit of clothes to corporate - favorable courts , and several other metre .
Biden ’s order adds to that press , directing antitrust regulator at the FTC and DOJ to update their principle vetting on mergers and acquisitions to better reflect practices in the tech sector , including revisiting deals that have already been complete . The executive order peculiarly targets so - called “ killer acquisition , ” which is when a dominant company buys up lesser competitors to obviate the electric potential they will pose a scourge to their market share down the road . Facebook , in special , is infamous for this kind of acquisition — specially its coup of Instagram and WhatsApp — but researcher with the House Judiciary ’s antimonopoly subcommittee also incriminate Amazon , Apple , and Google ofpartaking in this practice as wellin anOctober 2020 study .
In a fact sheet of paper , the White House wrote that it “ greet that the law allows [ regulators ] to dispute prior spoiled mergers that past establishment did not antecedently challenge , ” focusing on those “ by rife internet platforms , with particular attention to the skill of nascent contender , nonparallel mergers , the aggregation of data , rival by ‘ liberal ’ products , and the effect on user privacy . ”
The antitrust push against tech house that began under the Trump administration has find out sundry results so far . On June 28 , a federal judgethrew out an antimonopoly suitbrought by the FTC and 48 state attorneys general against Facebook , discover it was riddled with effectual errors . The DOJ and dozens of states are wag a similar suit against Google that is probably todrag out for years , which isjust one of several . Another legal battle of similar graduated table against Amazon , possibly incoordination with the FTC , is only in its nascent stages . The DOJ is alsoinvestigating complaintsrelated to restrictive policy Apple developer are required to sign before they can take part in the company ’s App Store .
Other section of the executive order aim crucial parts of tech companies ’ business concern models , such as collecting datum on their users and how they work online marketplaces . Biden instruct the FTC to develop unexampled rules around “ unjust data assemblage and surveillance practices that may damage contest , consumer self-direction , and consumer privacy . ” The guild mastermind the FTC to work on rules surround “ unfair contender in major Internet marketplaces ” ; this could particularly sham Amazon , which has long face accusations from third - party sellers of arbitrary policies designed to squeeze them of revenue . It also postulate the agency to develop rules against “ unfair anticompetitive restrictions on third - party repair or ego - repair of items . ” The decree specifically quote manufacturers of farm equipment that interdict buyers from using third - company repair shops , but Apple is infamous for the stranglehold it keeps onindependent repair shopsit partners with .
Biden also came out strongly against non - compete agreements that ship’s company expend to threaten employee with effectual action mechanism if they get out to work for a rival , urging the FTC to use its statutory authority to prohibit employment contracts that “ unfairly limit worker mobility . ” Traditionally , according to NPR , the legality and enforceability of these types of arrangement have varied from state to land ( not that it has rock a enceinte telephone number of company from include them in contracts regardless of what the legal philosophy says ) .
The most notorious instance was sandwich chain Jimmy John ’s , which abandoned its ultra - restrictive non - competes for its restaurant employee in 2016 , but technical school firmsare no strangerto imposing non - competes outdoors of California , where they are not enforceable . harmonise to NPR , this finicky part of the purchase order may romance with the boundary of the FTC ’s rulemaking bureau . Alongside that , Biden ’s order asks the FTC and DOJ to exceed meatier direction around employers who share compensation information with competitors to keep wage and benefits lower than they would be otherwise .
Biden also directed the FTC and DOJ to seem intostate job licensing requirementsthat the brass reckon as overly restrictive and preventing competition within the affected diligence . In the order , the chairman save that such restrictions can be a serious obstruction to worker ’ ability to find new exercise when moving across country lines . According to theHarvard Business Review , these rules can increase the income of some workers while preventing others from competing with them and ensue in higher Mary Leontyne Price for consumer .
ultimately , the order takes aim at prescription drug pricing . Biden told the Food and Drug Administration to work with state and aboriginal tribes to increase importation of meretricious drugs from Canada ( something that ’s enjoyed two-party appeal and became an initiative under the Trump administration ) . TheWall Street Journalreported the decree also aim to increase the exercise of generic drugs as contradict to high-priced brand - name prescriptions and curtail “ pay for delay ” rules in which manufacturers pay off competitors to not introduce generic versions of a drug for a menses of sentence . But the order does n’t take any action towards allowing Medicare to negotiate drug price with pharmaceutical company , a long - sought antecedency of Democratic lawmaker that has not materialized for years .
Executive orders voice tough but are seldom a substitute for the sort of sweeping legislative reforms that the Biden administration is seeking to drive through the Senate , which is carve up 50 - 50 and reliant upon Vice President Kamala Harris to break draw . Conservative Democrats , such as Senator Joe Manchin , have insist on “ bipartisanship ” even as Republicans in the Senate have declared all - out underground to Biden administration priorities .
Just how bad the resulting proposal of marriage are will look on how far the agencies responsible for get them will go ( although the FTC , prominently highlighted throughout the society , was latterly take over byantitrust meliorist Linda Khan ) . As theWashington Post take down , businesses are likely to wage tribunal battles in an attempt to prevent the new regulation from ever come into force , while liberal economists believe that trade union movement laws like the Biden - supported PRO Act would have far more of an effect on worker wages .
“ This will do some thing — it all seems okay to me — but will it increase wage ontogenesis for the bottom twenty percent of workers ? I doubt it , ” Matt Bruenig , the founding father of the People ’s Policy Project , narrate the Post . “ The most crucial thing for worker ’ remuneration is that they are able to ordinate what they ’ll be — to do that you need well spousal relationship laws — and the dynamics of competition within house is a much less significant factor . ”
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