The canceled executive order also underpinned efforts at Biden’s FTC to more aggressively enforce antitrust laws. Then-FTC Chair Lina Kahn issued new merger guidelines and blocked Kroger’s takeover of Albertson’s. She also sued John Deere in an attempt to give farmers the right to repair their own equipment. In a press release, current FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson characterized Trump’s decision to revoke the order as a win for free markets, signaling that the administration would take a very different approach to antitrust enforcement. “The now-withdrawn Executive Order encouraged top-down competition regulations, and established a flawed philosophical underpinning for the Biden-Harris Administration’s undue hostility toward mergers and acquisitions,” he said.

In a statement issued this week, the National Family Farm Coalition characterized the executive order differently, saying the Biden administration “had made headway” to create better conditions for fair market competition. “Without new federal policy to address consolidation, the revocation of this Executive Order will worsen existing conditions that allow abuses and the consolidation of power by the largest companies to go unchecked at the expense of small businesses, including independent farmers, and their customers,” they said. (Link to this post.)