Just eight months after the Biden administration successfully blocked a merger between Spirit Airlines and JetBlue, the former filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, necessitating its delisting from the New York Stock Exchange and wiping out tens of millions of dollars of shareholder value. Should Spirit’s restructuring fail and the budget airline exit the market altogether, airline ticket prices, which have already soared by 26% since President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office, will continue to climb upward thanks to diminishing domestic competition.
Spirit’s bankruptcy simply exemplifies the excesses of Biden’s disastrous war on mergers and acquisitions. The sheer predictability of the bankruptcy, which Spirit warned was inevitable without the JetBlue merger, provides a further license, if not outright mandate, for President-elect Donald Trump to reverse Biden’s war on economic growth on day one of his return to the Oval Office.
Morgan Stanley found that Biden’s antitrust crusade resulted in corporate mergers and acquisitions falling to their lowest level in 30 years, with the 37 M&A deals abandoned as of this summer a direct result of Biden’s hostility to business expansion. In 2024 alone, M&A activity fell by 15%.
Luckily for Trump, Wall Street is ecstatic at his win. Beyond the stock market boomlet in response to his sweeping victory, Goldman Sachs is projecting a 20% increase in M&A activity in 2025.
“The regulatory posture of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division that during the past four years challenged many proposed business combinations will likely be more relaxed under the incoming administration,” said Goldman in a statement. “CEO confidence is a key variable affecting executives’ inclination to engage in M&A activity.”
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While Trump may continue to subject publicly traded giants such as Google’s search engine dominance and Time Warner’s attempted mergers to antitrust, he has the mandate and the righteousness to relieve Biden’s attacks on startups, companies unable to independently afford initial public offerings, and industries nowhere near duopoly or monopoly control. Reversing Biden’s antitrust action would also work in tandem with Trump’s toughening up tariffs and protectionism. For example, Biden’s decision to block the merger of Tapestry and Capri, luxury goods companies that own the likes of Kate Spade and Michael Kors, respectively, ceded market ground in the luxury sector to further European dominance. Trump has every interest in advancing U.S. control of the luxury goods market.
As with all areas of the economy, Trump gifted Biden an extraordinary recovery, and Biden managed to drive it into the ground. In perhaps no sector more dire than antitrust, Trump has the mandate to “Make America Great Again.”
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
