The Trump administration’s antitrust team is swinging hard at Biden’s last-minute legal volleys, dismantling what they call a “lawfare legacy” of ideologically charged lawsuits.
Breitbart reported that these parting shots, filed in the Biden White House’s final days, aimed at companies like PepsiCo and Visa, are getting the boot as the new team pivots to economically grounded enforcement.
In its waning weeks, the Biden administration unleashed over 40 lawsuits, targeting major corporations with questionable legal footing. The Trump Department of Justice is now reversing course, prioritizing rigorous economic analysis over what they see as political posturing.
The FTC’s suit against PepsiCo, filed just three days before Trump’s inauguration, leaned on an obscure 1930s law and drew sharp criticism for its flimsy economic basis.
Legal experts rolled their eyes, calling it a stretch that wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny. The Trump team wasted no time, making it the first case to be axed.
Biden’s team didn’t stop at PepsiCo; they also targeted Visa and John Deere, filing cases right up to the eleventh hour.
The Visa lawsuit, dropped in the Southern District of New York, was branded as blatantly partisan. It tried to pin inflation woes on Visa’s 44-cent average debit card fees for $60 transactions.
“Even on the economic front, Biden’s team used lawfare to distract from their inflationary failures,” said Trump adviser Bruce LeVell. Nice try, but blaming Visa for Bidenomics’ price hikes feels like passing the buck. The Trump DOJ sees through the smoke and mirrors, focusing instead on real market harms.
Former congressman Matt Gaetz called the Visa suit “a desperate attempt to deflect blame from Bidenomics.” He’s not wrong—tying merchant fees to “nearly everything” costing more sounds like a stretch to dodge accountability. The Trump team is ready to call it quits on these distractions.
The Biden administration’s lawsuits were less about competition and more about pushing a progressive economic worldview, critics argue.
Thomas Willcox, a former deputy attorney general, noted, “Such an aggressive posture in the eleventh hour is highly unusual.” Translation: it’s a desperate flex of power, not a defense of markets.
Willcox went on, saying it showed Biden’s push to “broaden classical interpretations of U.S. antitrust law.” That’s a polite way of saying they twisted the law to fit their agenda. The Trump administration is done with these games, aiming to restore sanity to antitrust policy.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson put it bluntly: “Taxpayer dollars should not be used for legally dubious partisan stunts.” He’s right—why waste resources on shaky lawsuits when the FTC’s staff could focus on real consumer protection? Ferguson’s promise to refocus on fair competition is a breath of fresh air.
At April’s Little Tech Summit, the Trump team signaled a no-nonsense approach, targeting Big Tech and predatory monopolies with hard data. Unlike Biden’s scattershot lawsuits, they’re demanding solid economic evidence before moving forward. It’s a return to reason, not ideology.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater emphasized, “We are expected to have a testifying expert before going to trial.”
That’s a shot across the bow—Biden’s team often skipped such rigor, rushing cases to score political points. The Trump DOJ isn’t playing that game.
Slater also promised, “If you’re doing a merger that’s benign, we’ll just get out of the way.” This is music to businesses’ ears, tired of Biden’s regulatory chokehold. A lighter touch could unleash innovation stifled by overzealous enforcement.
Analysts expect more Biden-era lawsuits to be scrapped in the coming weeks as the Trump team cleans house. These cases, often filed hours before the transition, reek of political desperation rather than sound policy. The new administration is signaling a sharp pivot to economic clarity.
Biden’s approach, as Slater noted, “saps economic opportunity by stifling rather than promoting competition.”
It’s hard to argue when companies faced lawsuits over standard practices like Visa’s fees. The Trump team’s focus on predatory monopolies feels like a course correction.