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OPINION:
Three years ago, we warned of Big Tech’s campaign to weaponize U.S. national security to protect its monopolies from antitrust scrutiny. At the time, Google and other tech giants argued that bipartisan legislation in Congress to curb their monopoly power would harm national security. They claimed that Big Tech companies were “national champions” like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and should be exempt from antitrust laws to protect America from foreign threats such as China. Unfortunately, many conservatives in Congress fell for this argument and the legislation failed.
This reasoning was deeply flawed. It relied on the false assumption that trillion-dollar Big Tech monopolists — Alphabet (Google and YouTube), Amazon, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) and Apple — actually care about America. Take Google, for example. In 2018, the company abandoned its contract with the Pentagon for Project Maven, an initiative to provide artificial intelligence for military drones. This decision was made after internal protests from employees who, driven by political biases, objected to working with the U.S. military.
Meanwhile, Google was negotiating with the Chinese government to develop a censored search engine known as Project Dragonfly, which would grant the Chinese Communist Party access to citizens’ data. In short, Google was unwilling to support U.S. national security but was more than willing to collaborate with China and the Chinese Communist Party. This behavior demonstrates that Google’s priorities were never aligned with our national interests.
Fast-forward to 2025, and Google is playing the same game. A recent Bloomberg report revealed that Google met with the Justice Department’s antitrust division to argue against penalties after a court ruled that Google had monopolized the online search market. The company contended that penalties for its anticompetitive behavior would harm the U.S. economy and national security, but Google provided no specifics on how its monopoly supported national security.
Instead, Google asked the Justice Department to take its word for it and ignored the court’s findings. This was an insult to the court and the Trump administration, which initially filed the antitrust case in 2020. Google’s request to receive antitrust amnesty, without providing evidence to support it, reveals the company’s complete disregard for legal processes and national security.
Big Tech has gotten away with this antitrust amnesty rhetoric for far too long. When monopolistic companies such as Google crush competition, suppress small businesses, cancel dissent and cozy up to authoritarian regimes, they are fundamentally damaging the free market system. Big Tech companies’ monopolistic control over information and commerce is corrosive to American democracy.
President Trump, with the Trump 47 Justice Department, can take decisive action and finish what he started in his first term. Mr. Trump understood the threat posed by Big Tech better than anyone else and fought back through the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission. Now is the time to keep up the fight and ensure that Big Tech’s stranglehold on the market is broken. Mr. Trump should ignore advice from well-meaning but misguided tech advisers who have little understanding of the damage these companies have caused.
If Mr. Trump’s antitrust agencies break up Big Tech, it will be a moment of historic justice. Republican presidents have pursued such breakups before. The most notable example is President Reagan’s 1984 breakup of AT&T. Despite AT&T’s claims that its monopoly was necessary for national security, the Justice Department split up the company, leading to a wave of innovation that transformed American technology.
Ma Bell’s breakup spurred the wireless industry’s growth and laid the groundwork for the early internet. If Reagan had caved to AT&T’s demands, Americans might never have enjoyed the competition and innovation that followed. The breakup of AT&T did not harm national security; it strengthened the American economy and laid the foundation for global technological dominance.
Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” If Mr. Trump moves forward with the breakup of Google and other Big Tech companies, it could spark a golden age of American innovation, just as the breakup of AT&T did in the 1980s. If Big Tech monopolists such as Google are broken up, smaller companies will have the chance to compete on a level playing field, creating opportunities for innovation that could rival any foreign adversary. This would ultimately strengthen national security by fostering a more diverse, competitive technological ecosystem not beholden to foreign adversaries such as China.
Mr. Trump has always been a disrupter and an upstarter, qualities that made him successful in business and politics. Breaking up Big Tech would give smaller companies breathing room to compete, innovate and challenge foreign adversaries. It would restore American competitiveness and ensure our economy and national security are no longer at the mercy of monopolistic technology giants.
The fight against Big Tech is not just an economic issue; it’s a matter of national security. By standing firm against the monopolistic practices of companies such as Google, Mr. Trump can help pave the way for a more innovative, secure and competitive America.
Ultimately, breaking up Big Tech is not just the right thing to do; it’s a patriotic act that could unleash the next wave of American technological innovation. History has shown that monopolists hinder progress. Mr. Trump can finish the job and restore American competitiveness and national security.
• Mike Davis is the founder and president of the Article III Project.
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