The deep state is not dead yet

OPINION:

President Trump is overhauling the federal government. No day passes without announcements of agency leaders being let go, bureaucrats being replaced, and long-standing regulations being rolled back in the name of efficiency and economic growth. His administration has moved quickly to dismantle policies set by his predecessors, indicating a transformation of the federal bureaucracy and reducing the influence of entrenched career officials.

In the past week, the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been dismissed. Senior officials at the FBI have been removed from their posts. Bureaucrats have been warned that they will lose their jobs if they don’t report to work. The radical climate change agenda has been put on hold. Preferential treatment policies have been discarded, and nongovernmental organizations that have facilitated censorship and unchecked immigration have had their federal funding cut off.

In federal courts nationwide, government lawyers have dropped cases, withdrawn amicus briefs and reversed legal positions that once supported liberal priorities. At the Department of Homeland Security, officials have eliminated lenient immigration enforcement policies, reinstating strict border controls and deportation priorities. The State Department has discontinued funding for international climate initiatives, redirecting resources to strengthen national security. Mr. Trump’s team is making it clear throughout the federal government: The era of the activist bureaucracy is over.

Despite Mr. Trump’s significant and impressive overhaul, some government agencies are still doing things in their usual deep state fashion.

The Justice Department, under the outstanding leadership of newly minted Attorney General Pam Bondi, must alter a socialistic regulatory approach that could undermine U.S. competitiveness on the global stage. To this end, we look forward to Gail Slater’s work alongside Ms. Bondi as the assistant attorney general for antitrust.

The Justice Department is not just going after Big Tech and other problem actors. It’s going after any companies that the department deems too successful.

Nowhere is this more evident than in America’s ongoing struggle against China’s aggressive push to dominate critical industries, particularly in telecommunications.

The world’s leading telecommunications giant, China’s Huawei, has long been a national security concern. Accusations of intellectual property theft, espionage and backdoor access for the Chinese Communist Party have led the U.S. and its allies to restrict or ban Huawei’s presence in critical infrastructure. Washington has imposed sanctions, cut off Huawei’s access to key U.S. technologies and pushed to secure America’s leadership in next-generation networking technologies.

Yet, the Justice Department is attempting to block a merger between HPE and Juniper, which is America’s best hope to challenge Huawei’s alarming 30% global market share in telecommunications.

America’s next closest competitor to Huawei is just 7% of the market, so national security leaders are disappointed that the Justice Department has blocked a merger that could better compete with the Chinese giant. The misguided regulatory inertia here is a relic of the Biden era, prioritizing ideological antitrust enforcement over strategic economic policy.

Fortunately, however, the Trump administration’s reinforcements are en route. Attorney General Bondi and Assistant Attorney General Slater will reassess the Justice Department’s filings and reverse the Biden administration’s misguided antitrust enforcement policies, particularly in instances like this one that undermine the Trump administration’s tough-on-China policies.

The Federal Reserve’s existing approach to managing the economy, particularly through its continued high interest rate policies, is another salient example of bureaucrats undercutting the “America First” agenda.

The Fed continues prioritizing inflation targeting over Main Street’s economic struggles and small businesses’ ability to compete in the marketplace. Perhaps even more so than the Justice Department’s antitrust policies, this fixation is utterly tone-deaf to U.S. economic pressures from China and other global competitors.

With U.S. industries struggling to keep pace with aggressive foreign policies, particularly in the technological and manufacturing sectors, the Fed’s reluctance to embrace more flexible monetary strategies stifles growth at a critical time. While Mr. Trump’s economic team has pushed for more aggressive policies to ensure the U.S. remains competitive and has succeeded in many ways, the Fed behaves like a stubborn, wayward sleigh dog.

Thankfully, like with the Justice Department, change is near. One key Federal Reserve official will resign at the end of this month, and another’s term will expire next year, so Mr. Trump will have opportunities to reshape the Fed during his time in office.

The deep state has been around for decades. It cannot just disappear overnight.

Voters should not be discouraged, though, as the Trump administration is clipping it at an impressive rate — a speed no one thought was possible.

Slowly but surely, all the holdover fires of the previous establishment administrations will be extinguished, and the government will begin working exclusively for the people who created it. That’s something we all should be able to get behind.

• Matt Gaetz is a former congressman from Florida who served on the House Judiciary Committee, including the select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government and the subcommittee on antitrust, commercial and administrative law. He is also a former attorney general nominee for President Trump.