MSCC Signs Letter Urging Trump Administration to Enforce Antitrust to Promote Affordability
The Honorable Donald J. Trump
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear President Trump:
We write as a broad, bipartisan coalition of businesses, trade associations, innovators, and conservative leaders united by a shared belief: a competitive economy is essential not only to American strength and innovation, but to lowering the cost of living and increasing affordability for working families.
Across the economy, consolidation and abuses of market power have made everyday necessities more expensive for Americans. When competition breaks down, prices rise, choices shrink, smaller businesses are squeezed out, and jobs are lost. Nowhere is this more evident than in the essential markets that households rely on most.
• Food Retail - Dominant retailers increasingly use their market power to raise rivals’ costs, extract discriminatory pricing, and block smaller competitors from accessing fair terms, driving up food prices for consumers while hollowing out local stores.
• Agriculture - Excessive consolidation has raised input prices, weakened farmers’ bargaining power – especially in fertilizers and seeds – and reduced resilience across food supply chains, costs that ultimately show up at the grocery checkout.
• Healthcare - Consolidation across insurers, hospital systems, pharmacy benefit managers, and drug wholesalers, along with increased private equity acquisitions of hospitals and physician practices, has weakened competition, reduced patient choice, and driven up premiums, out-of-pocket costs, and prescription drug prices.
• Technology - Dominant platforms control access to information and to online markets, impose coercive terms on sellers and advertisers, and pass those costs on to consumers. In the e-commerce market, this behavior drives both smaller sellers and distributors out of the market resulting in less competition and ultimately higher prices.
• Payments - Swipe fees are a $1,800-a-year hidden tax on the average American family, imposed by the Visa–Mastercard duopoly. This concentration of market power allows dominant networks to raise costs for consumers with few constraints.
• Entertainment - Consolidation has allowed dominant gatekeepers like Live Nation- Ticketmaster to extract monopoly rents from fans and artists.
• Transportation and Freight - Further consolidation in airlines and rail eliminates competitive pressures, allowing dominant carriers to raise fares, shipping rates, cut service, and impose take-it-or-leave it terms that pass through supply chains and ultimately raise prices for consumers.
• Right to Repair - Manufacturers of everything from electronics to farm and military equipment deliberately limit competition in the repair market. This ripples across every sector: farmers face costly downtime during critical harvests, hospitals struggle to maintain essential medical equipment, independent repair shops are squeezed out, and even our military cannot service its own gear. We are encouraged by your Administration’s early commitment to reinvigorating antitrust enforcement as a core pillar of an America First economic agenda. The vision for America First Antitrust recognizes a simple truth: fair competition is how markets discipline prices, reward innovation, and rebuild Main Street. Open markets and fair dealing are not partisan goals, they are essential to a strong and affordable American economy.
We are further encouraged by the concrete steps taken in late 2025 and early this year to confront rising costs in food and agriculture, homebuying, credit card, pharmacy, and healthcare, areas where market concentration and weak competition have directly fueled affordability crises for American families. Now, it’s critical these actions are followed through full use of the antitrust authorities’ statutory levers across the economy. Doing so will ensure that competition policy delivers real measurable relief for consumers and small businesses.
Importantly, strong antitrust enforcement reflects not only sound economic policy, but the clear will of the American people. A recent Rasmussen Reports survey found broad, bipartisan agreement that excessive corporate power is a serious problem in today’s economy. Nearly three-quarters of Americans, across both parties, believe large companies wield too much power, and roughly two-thirds agree that stronger enforcement of the antitrust laws would help lower prices for consumers. In an era defined by rising costs and economic anxiety, restoring competition is one of the most popular and practical tools available to deliver real relief to American families.
A muscular antitrust policy is not about punishing success. It is about ensuring that markets remain open, that firms compete on the merits, and that no company becomes so powerful it can raise prices, restrict output, or block competitors with impunity. Vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws, across food and groceries, healthcare, agriculture, technology, payments, housing, and distribution, is essential to lowering costs, strengthening supply chains, and restoring opportunity for American enterprise.
We respectfully urge your Administration to build on its America First Antitrust commitment by advancing strong enforcement in 2026, particularly in sectors where intervention will most directly affect the cost and availability of everyday essentials. These actions are vital to rebuilding Main Street, saving jobs, restoring fair competition, and reducing the cost of essential goods and services for American families.
We stand ready to support your efforts to Make America Competitive Again and to ensure that competition works for consumers, workers, farmers, and businesses across the country.
Sincerely,
Aiden Buzzetti, President, The Bull Moose Project
American Independent Business Alliance
American MainStreet Products
Association for Independent Medicine
Beeper
Coalition for Patient-Centered Care
Digital Content Next
Digital Right to Repair Coalition
DuckDuckGo
Eric Migicovsky, Core Devices
Georgia Corn Growers Association
Illinois Corn Growers Association
Iowa Corn Growers Association
Joel Thayer, President, Digital Progress Institute
John Latham, President, Latham Hi-Tech Seeds
Local First Arizona
Main Street Competition Coalition
Midwest Retail and Grocery Alliance
Missouri Grocers Association
National Community Pharmacists Association
National Grocers Association
New Hampshire Grocery Association
News/Media Alliance
North Dakota Grocers Association
Ohio Corn & Wheat Growers Association
Proton
R-CALF USA
Raheem J. Kassam, Editor, The National Pulse; Co-owner, Butterworth’s
Rachel Bovard, Conservative Partnership Institute
Responsible Online Commerce Coalition
Retail Grocers Association of Greater Kansas City
Small Business Majority
South Dakota Retailers Association
Workplace Solutions Association
Y Combinator
Read the full letter here.