President-elect Donald J. Trump has burst onto the transition scene with energy and important pronouncements, including naming of Gail Slater to head up transition efforts on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). That is an excellent if unsurprising choice.
Ms. Slater served in the first Trump Administration as a Special Assistant to the President, working with Larry Kudlow, Director of the National Economic Council. Since February 2024 she has been Economic Policy Advisor to Senator J.D. Vance, and she also worked at the FTC from 2004-14.
The FTC is an important agency for ensuring the U.S. economy functions optimally and that consumers are protected. It was designed by Congress to be independent, methodical, and bipartisan with its decisions rooted in legal reasoning forged through consensus.
That changed in 2021 when President Biden named Lina Khan, a progressive protégé of Senator Elizabeth Warren, to be the FTC’s chair. Since then, she has been the tip of the spear for advancing many of the administration’s most political notions, including the flawed idea that price gouging is the primary reason grocery prices rose so dramatically.
The FTC needs to be fixed and quickly. President-elect Trump should take the following actions before being sworn in.
First, he should announce that he will name Commissioner Melissa Holyoak as Acting Chair of the FTC on Inauguration Day. Ms. Holyoak is one of two Republican Commissioners at the FTC, which has a 3-2 Democrat majority and by law cannot have more than three commissioners of one party.
Commissioner Holyoak has gained broad respect for being a thoughtful textualist and for preparing well-reasoned dissenting opinions on numerous areas of FTC overreach, such as a rule to declare more than 30 million noncompete agreements null and void.
Second, the President should announce that on January 20, 2025 he will nominate Commissioner Holyoak to another term. He should also announce a nominee to replace Commissioner Lina Khan.
While Khan’s term expired on September 25, 2024, she can stay at the FTC as long as she likes until a replacement comes into office. Commissioner Holyoak’s term expires on September 25, 2025. When announcing this, the President should also urge the Senate to make an up or down confirmation vote on the nominees by March 1. That is plenty of time to review their backgrounds and make decisions.
Third, the President should prepare an executive order that will demand the FTC and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division cease and desist their cooperation with European Commission regulators against U.S. companies. In his first term, President Trump was appropriately critical of, and effective in stopping, European regulators from using U.S. companies as a piggy bank. That challenge is now much greater and must be addressed.
The FTC has served America well since 1914 and continues to have an important role to play going forward. By draining it of political and partisan activity, President-elect Trump will return the agency to its traditional practices and remove an undue drag on the American economy.
