Tech Lobby Claims Antitrust Push Contradicts Anti-China Effort

Rob Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said the mismatch reminds him of the longtime subsidies Washington doled out to tobacco farmers even as it taxed cigarettes and funded anti-smoking campaigns.

“These are very contradictory forces that are at work,” said Atkinson, adding that escalating antitrust efforts will put America’s major tech firms “into a defensive crouch ... when we want them in the ring fighting as hard as possible, because they’re going to be competing against China.”