The Trump administration’s decision will test whether its embrace of bank deregulation extends to consolidation that might harm financially strapped Americans, an antitrust lawyer and economist told The Deal.
“Ongoing moves to loosen regulation in the banking sector signal less oversight,” said Diana Moss, vice president and director of competition policy at the Progressive Policy Institute and the author of a detailed analysis of the merger.
Another wild card is how the new administration would handle investigations initiated under President Joe Biden, whose antitrust team preferred to challenge transactions it considered problematic.
“Like other cross-over mergers, strategy moving forward could be complicated. Trump 1.0 enforcers settled a lot of deals that raised competition issues, as opposed to blocking them,” Moss said.
Though Trump has threatened to halt mergers involving other companies he’s accused of wrongdoing, it’s unclear whether he’d take that approach here.
“It’s entirely possible, as we saw during Trump 1.0, that antitrust will be weaponized by the Trump administration, used to air political grievances and retaliation,” Moss warned.
