What will antitrust enforcement look like under the second Trump administration? Speculation aside, there are some clues. The results of the 2024 election yielded Republican control in both the White House and Congress albeit with an ever-so slight Republican majority in the House of Representatives. The future of antitrust enforcement is therefore under Republican control for at least the next two years. The last time the Republicans had such control was from 2017 to 2019. Among conservatives, however, there has been a divergence on the role of the antitrust laws. Some prefer a softened approach to antitrust enforcement while others, colloquially referred to as “Khanservatives,” agree with the more aggressive antitrust enforcement characteristic of the whole-of-government approach deployed by the Biden administration and Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. Ultimately, this ideological antitrust split means that the nature of antitrust enforcement under the second Trump administration will largely depend on those officials following President Donald Trump’s direction. Top of that list is Trump’s choice of Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general.

Bondi served as the attorney general of Florida between 2011 to 2019, during which time she established a track record that would suggest a Bondi-led Department of Justice (DOJ) that will not shy away from antitrust enforcement efforts assuming it fits in the Trump agenda. During her tenure as Florida AG, Bondi’s antitrust efforts were broad-ranging, challenging mergers in health care and among airlines, joining other states in efforts to stop price fixing in the prescription drug and poultry industries, and even securing a settlement with the NFL after it was accused of violating the antitrust laws by enforcing a leaguewide price floor on second-market ticket sales. These areas of focus were significant at the time of Bondi’s tenure as Florida AG, and they remain significant now: each has been a hotspot of antitrust activity in the last few years, both in private litigation and cases brought by the federal agencies and state attorneys general. How those issues develop and are addressed going forward will, in large part, depend on Bondi and her to-be-chosen deputy attorney general for antitrust.