Doug Kelly, CEO of American Edge Project
To thwart our authoritarian adversaries and cement U.S. global technological leadership, President Trump is seeking to usher in a “Golden Age of American Innovation.” Reversing the prior administration’s antagonism toward the private sector, the White House is deregulating at home and standing up for U.S. companies abroad.
However, the White House should consider moving more quickly to change course in one key area. Specifically, at both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ), misguided actions risk perpetuating Biden-era initiatives that undermine the President’s stated goals and priorities. This institutional inertia threatens to undermine the administration’s objectives and hand a lasting economic and security advantage to China. We should avoid reverting to the anti-innovation posture of Lina Khan’s FTC.
The stakes are high: America is in a fierce battle with Beijing for innovative ideas and mastery of strategic technologies. Every day and every dollar matters. America’s leading tech companies are our country’s best chance to check China’s global ambitions. But while the CCP is paving the way for tech companies, America’s tech companies are being engulfed in expensive legal and regulatory tsunamis on multiple fronts.
One example: the FTC is taking Meta to court on Monday, seeking to unwind its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, even though the agency approved these mergers more than a dozen years ago, and even though social media markets are flush with competition from TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other popular platforms. The district court has raised serious concerns about the merits of the government’s case. Moreover, the current FTC continues to pursue its case against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, even though the deal has been approved by a reviewing court and regulators around the globe.
Similarly, DOJ continues to pursue the Biden Administration’s extraordinarily harsh penalties against Google, including the forced sale of its popular and profitable Chrome browser. DOJ also wants Google to seek permission from regulators for its artificial intelligence (AI) activities, and mandate changes to its Android system or be forced to sell that division.
In allowing government agencies to continue to try to break up these three companies, the administration is sabotaging our global competitiveness vis-a-vis China, punishing innovators for being successful, and potentially harming America’s consumers, economy, and national security, all contrary to President Trump’s own words. During interviews, the President has stated that antitrust enforcers should consider the global competitive landscape, noting “[we] want to have great companies — we don’t want China to have these companies,” and when asked whether to break up Google, he responded “If you do that, are you going to destroy the company? What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it’s more fair.”
Meanwhile in China, Beijing is investing nearly $3 trillion into becoming the global tech leader, with a focus on AI, quantum, semiconductors, and other strategic technologies. It’s also creating a national bond platform to fund AI innovation and support mergers and acquisitions, while aggressively exporting its version of AI – especially open-source AI models – to more than 150 countries across the globe through its Belt and Road Initiative.
Beijing’s goal is simple: usurp the U.S. as the global tech leader and hook the world on its technology. Doing so will enable China to export its version of “digital authoritarianism” throughout the world through technology built on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) values of censorship, misinformation, and control.
Distracting our innovators from research and development (R&D) efforts, these lawsuits are forcing America’s companies to fork over billions in legal defense fees, compliance costs, and excessive fines from our European Union (EU) allies and federal and state regulations. Now, companies are being served notice that no merger is safe, no matter how long ago it was approved.
That’s no way to usher in a Golden Age of American Innovation and certainly not how to compete with China. To achieve these twin goals, President Trump should do the following:
1) Ensure executive branch agencies are aligned in support of his pro-innovation and pro-U.S. leadership vision. We need a whole-of-society and a whole-of-administration approach to beat China. Actions and strategies at every level must align with goals. One example: China is relying on open-source AI models to gain tech superiority. Meta is America’s largest and most capable open-source AI company, yet the FTC wants to break it up, a move that would cripple its ability to continue to invest.
2) Make AI America’s modern-day moonshot. Our AI is embedded with American values of openness, transparency, and opportunity. President Trump should call for an Apollo-like effort to accelerate American AI leadership, with the government working hand-in-glove with the private sector. This includes developing the world’s most powerful AI models, as well as their adoption and distribution across industries at home and abroad. This is a global network effect: whichever country’s tech is embraced widest is best positioned to influence global standards and governance.
3) Stay focused on America’s tech infrastructure. President Trump has already announced $500 billion in data infrastructure investments, but much more is needed to win the tech race. We need expanded energy sources, modernized transmission lines, regulatory reform, and a national data strategy, as data is the lifeblood of AI. America also needs to graduate millions more tech-graduates, and train millions more skilled trades workers to build, operate, and secure our tech infrastructure.
4) Embrace the benefits of scale. To unlock the potential of AI, quantum computing, and other strategic technologies, America’s innovation ecosystem needs both the nimbleness and creativity of startup tech companies, and the scale, resources, and staying power of large tech firms—who often invest billions in smaller players to further catalyze innovation.
China is the most powerful and capable opponent the United States has ever faced. It is investing trillions to overcome the U.S. as the world’s tech leader and working with a single-minded purpose that mobilizes all its national talent and resources. To usher in the President’s Golden Age of American Innovation, we need to match that determination and investment. Because it matters greatly which country – and which set of values – builds our digital future.