By Jason Kim’19On October 23^rd, AT&T Inc. announced $85.4 billion merger agreement with Time Warner. Although several prominent politicians quickly expressed concerns, AT&T executives seem quite confident. David McAtee, an AT&T senior executive vice president said, “In the modern history of the media and the Internet, the U.S. government has always approved vertical mergers like ours.” McAtee is referring to a recent precedent of Comcast’s successful acquisition of NBC Universal.However, AT&T executives might be too optimistic: they have overlooked a current political climate in Washington towards interpretations and implementations of antitrust laws. Indeed, some criticisms over AT&T’s acquisition plan were expected: Senator Mike Lee and Amy Klobuchar of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights as well as those who played leading roles in bringing charges against Wall Street and Corporate America such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren all expressed skepticisms. Since 1988, the Democratic Party had followed the path of Ronald Reagan and Robert Bork’s economic policy of dismantling the long tradition of anti-monopoly policy. The conservative idea that giant corporations can produce goods more cheaply to maximize competitiveness and efficiency strongly influenced American politics for more than three decades. William Baxter, the former head of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice in the late 20^th Century most directly portrayed the past political climate, claiming, “I have no hostility against large mergers.”This attitude, however, has recently been shifting, and the current political climate has more hostility towards big mergers than in decades past. The Democratic Party’s 2016 platform, for the first time in 26 years, vowed to enhance antitrust enforcement. People also started to have negative feelings against giant corporations after the economic recession of 2008. The rate of startups is at the lowest since the 1970s while the revenue of the Fortune 500 companies rose dramatically. Moreover, analysts and experts, such as President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers as well as Nobel Prize winners like Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman argued that recent economic concentration and lack of competition in markets are causing inequality and stagnant growth.The movement calling for more rigid interpretations of antitrust laws is gaining tremendous momentum as politicians such as Bernie Sander, Elizabeth Warren, and Donald Trump are establishing their political influences in the heart of their major parties. Therefore, adversary sentiments against large mergers will most likely continue even after the presidential election.More established politicians such as House Speaker Paul Ryan who has benefited from AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson’s numerous donations, are still hesitant to defend the deal. Although extensive lobbying activates would definitely help AT&T, current political atmosphere will not give too much room for changes in attitudes against large mergers.AT&T can just be a start. Senator Elizabeth Warren mentioned not only traditional conglomerates such as Walmart, Comcast, CVS, Delta and Anthem, but also more recent tech-based companies such as Amazon, Google and Apple in her speech promoting stronger implementation of antitrust laws. The government might start looking into these giant Silicon Valley corporations as well.The powerful antitrust law has never been appealed: the Reagan administration only introduced new interpretations of the law. This means that whoever becomes the next president of the United States can enforce more rigid antitrust laws without coordination with the Congress.It remains to be seen how the AT&T’s Time Warner acquisition deal will play out. But as both majority political parties and their presidential candidates favor stronger antitrust measures, it is reasonable to think that a new era of antitrust might be upon us.Sources:http://theweek.com/articles/657179/americas-new-antitrust-courage-about-major-testhttp://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/24/political-climate-will-likely-kill-att-time-warner-deal-commentary.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/business/dealbook/atts-bid-for-time-warner-faces-fierce-political-opposition.html?_r=1http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/37080-after-three-decades-of-neglect-antitrust-is-back-on-the-democratic-platformhttps://promarket.org/140-years-antitrust-brandeisian-pro-competition-anti-monopoly-sentiments-coming-back-political-discourse/http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/att-ceo-opponents-of-time-warner-merger-are-uninformed/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/joseph-stiglitz-are-markets-efficient-or-do-they-tend-towards-monopoly-the-verdict-is-in/