By Jody Godoy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. antitrust enforcers greenlit T-Mobile’s $4.4 billion acquisition of UScellular on Thursday, the latest deal blessed by the Trump administration as it takes a softer approach to corporate consolidation than its predecessor.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division said it was closing its investigation without seeking to block the deal announced in May 2024 for T-Mobile to take over UScellular’s wireless operations including customers, stores and 30% of its spectrum assets.
The announcement came a day after T-Mobile US said it was ending its diversity, equity and inclusion programs under pressure from the Trump administration, as it sought regulatory clearance for this deal and Federal Communications Commission approval to establish a joint venture with to acquire internet service provider Metronet.
Gail Slater, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said in a statement that customers would be better off with T-Mobile.
“UScellular simply could not keep up with the escalating cost of capital investments in technology required to compete vigorously in the relevant market. This would, in turn, lead to the slow degradation of its network quality,” she said.
The Justice Department’s investigation did not show evidence of harms to competition that would warrant suing to block the deal, Slater said.
But she added the transaction and two others tied to it would “consolidate yet more spectrum in the Big 3’s oligopoly, which controls more than 80 percent of the mobile wireless spectrum in the country,” referring to Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.
Spokespeople for T-Mobile and UScellular did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Under President Donald Trump’s administration, antitrust enforcers have cleared the way for several multibillion-dollar deals, replacing his predecessor Joe Biden’s tough stance on corporate consolidation with a willingness to settle with companies and truncate waiting periods.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Chris Sanders, Franklin Paul and Jamie Freed)
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