T-Mobile Sprint Merger Is a Test of President Trump’s Antitrust Mettle

President Donald Trump’s trustbusters don’t take no for an answer. After a federal judge rejected their lawsuit to stop AT&T from acquiring Time Warner, the Justice Department decided to appeal. Their efforts to stop the deal are a contrast to the administration’s generally friendly approach to big business; it is now preparing to approve tie-ups between CVS Health and Aetna, and between Cigna and Express Scripts Holding Co. Critics think the Justice Department is doing the bidding of President Trump by punishing Time Warner for the reporting of its news channel, CNN. A more generous theory is, it is testing the frontiers of consumer protection.

Which theory prevails will depend in part on how the Justice Department handles a different merger: the pending tie-up between T-Mobile and Sprint, the number three and four wireless carriers, respectively. Both mergers require tricky judgments about the evolution of technology and media consumption habits. Nonetheless, the legal and economic case against T-Mobile/Sprint is far stronger than against AT&T/Time Warner. If the Justice Department waves through the deal—which the companies hope to complete in the first half of 2019—the agency will raise questions about its political independence and fealty to antitrust principles. There is no guarantee that if the Trump Justice Department sues to block T-Mobile Sprint, it will succeed. But without even trying, the Justice Department would rightly raise questions about why it is so much more determined to undo AT&T/Time Warner.