Former US President Donald Trump’s vice presidential choice of JD Vance could help spark another crackdown campaign on Big Tech – if the Republican candidate beats Joe Biden in November’s election.
Vance has openly praised the work of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, a move that has been seen as a sign that the agency’s broad approach to antitrust enforcement could enjoy backing from a second Trump administration.
Vance, a Republican US senator from Ohio, joined the presidential ticket on Monday at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump officially became the party’s nominee.
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Vance is one of several Republican lawmakers, including US Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and Florida US Representative Matt Gaetz, who are called “Khanservatives” for their agreement with the FTC chair that US antitrust law has a broader purpose than keeping prices down for consumers.
“She recognised there has to be a broader understanding of how we think about competition in the marketplace,” Vance said at an event in Washington in February.
The comments reflect a tension in the conservative movement, between an impulse to shrink regulatory agencies and a willingness to use antitrust laws to challenge powerful corporations – especially in Big Tech, where some hope to tackle perceived censorship of conservatives online.
Joseph Coniglio, director of antitrust policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said Vance is among the latter.
“I do think that picking Senator Vance as vice-president certainly sends a signal in one direction,” said Coniglio. His think tank receives funding from several major technology companies.
Scrutiny of Big Tech would not be a departure for Trump. The FTC and Department of Justice under Trump initiated investigations into Meta, Amazon, Apple and Google over alleged antitrust violations. All four companies were eventually sued, but have denied any wrongdoing.
Vance is a Yale-educated lawyer and venture capitalist who worked at corporate law firm Sidley Austin and has helped Trump fundraise in Silicon Valley. He has also called for the break-up of one of its biggest companies.
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“Long overdue, but it’s time to break Google up,” Vance tweeted in February, lamenting that “monopolistic control of information in our society resides with an explicitly progressive technology company.”
It remains to be seen what a potential second Trump administration would focus on. The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy platform discusses ways conservative causes can be championed by antitrust enforcers but also questions whether the FTC should continue to exist.
Business groups have criticised President Joe Biden’s antitrust enforcers for going beyond traditional considerations of how competition affects prices to focus on issues including labour.
The US Chamber of Commerce has sued to block the FTC’s recent ban on employers requiring workers to sign agreements not to join rivals or launch competing businesses.
Vance said at the February event, hosted by Silicon Valley startup incubator Y Combinator, that his view of antitrust encompasses not only helping small firms compete, but also on workers and the quality of consumer goods.
He disagreed with what he described as some conservatives’ view that corporations’ behaviour cannot be “tyrannical.”
“I want people to live good lives in our country,” he said. “I don’t really care if the entity that is most threatening to that vision is a private entity or a public entity.”
- Reuters with additional editing by Sean O’Meara
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