The President's role in antitrust policy.

Like his cousin, the first President Roosevelt, FDR took antitrust to have a democratic element - serving as a constraint on private power. Keywords: Antitrust; K21 EN Antitrust K21 300 305 6 08/11/23 20230701 NES 230701 One of the major institutional developments in antitrust enforcement and competition policy over the first term of the Biden Administration has been a return to an active policy-setting role by the Presidency. In the 1904 election, Roosevelt's opponent Alton Parker charged that the President used the threat of antitrust action to solicit campaign donations.[8] Roosevelt was also willing to proactively bless some mergers through the so-called "gentlemen's agreements", as in the case of US Steel's acquisition of Tennessee Coal and Steel during the financial panic of 1907.[9] President Taft appears to have continued Roosevelt's approach of reserving for himself final decisions in major cases (including a suit against US Steel in 1911).[10] After that point, the President's involvement in specific enforcement actions becomes less clear in the historic record, though there is clearly an overall trend of greater distance between the Justice Department and the White House.[11] There are exceptions: President Nixon famously ordered his Justice Department to settle a major antitrust case, and cases raising national security concerns have also received special treatment. I. PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATIONS The presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR), and Ronald Reagan are the most significant for understanding the President's traditional involvement in antitrust enforcement. [Extracted from the article]