Americans recently awoke to a startling revelation: “Our country is getting ripped off.” Indeed, the purportedly deleterious effects of international trade on the United States domestic economy have claimed top billing in President Donald Trump’s nascent “America First” agenda. As the White House publicly excoriates international free trade for the first time in recent memory, global trade deals and domestic tariffs are cast in stark relief. China and Mexico, along these lines, are cast as chief culprits in a system of international exchange allegedly designed to subjugate American workers to nefarious foreign interests. Overall, recent politics underscore the practical importance of, and interdependence between, competition and cooperation in international economic regulation.
In the arena of hard-nosed international competition, it’s all fun and games––until somebody starts a trade war. But beyond the scope of trade deals and tariffs, sovereign states’ domestic antitrust laws are also critical regulatory levers. Americans at the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have the power to influence incentives in markets across the globe. For example, although domestic by nature, U.S. antitrust laws do not exclusively apply to conduct in domestic markets—the Sherman Act may extend far beyond American shores to activities conceived and executed abroad.