US antitrust chiefs voiced support for an American crackdown on gatekeeper tech giants a week after the European Union reached a deal reining in the likes of Google and Meta Platforms Inc. Jonathan Kanter, the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, speaking during a conference in Brussels Thursday, said acquisitions of nascent rivals by larger players should be closely scrutinised because such deals over time risk weakening competition in the economy. “The plain text of our merger laws in the United States demand that we have aggressive enforcement against acquisitions by firms that already possess a dominant position,” Kanter said. The US has lagged Europe in creating a tougher environment for digital behemoths. Last week, the European Union agreed on a sweeping slate of rules on how tech giants can operate in the bloc known as the Digital Markets Act. China’s tech crackdown moves into new year with fines on Alibaba, Tencent Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan called the law “a landmark proposal to promote fair access to markets controlled by digital gatekeepers”. In Washington, the Justice Department has thrown its support behind a bill that would bar major technology platforms like Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc from giving preferential treatment to their own products at the expense of competitors. Bipartisan agreement about the need for stronger antitrust enforcement against giant platforms “reflects a mandate for decisive action”, Kanter said, even as the US remains politically polarised. Khan added that tech giants should be prevented from unlawfully dominating emerging technologies like voice assistance, cloud computing, and virtual reality. She noted that traditional merger rules fail to capture the harms of digital monopoly power, a stance she has voiced throughout her career. Kanter and Khan spoke alongside some of their European counterparts, including EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager and Andreas Mundt, president of Germany’s competition regulator. Mundt announced that Apple Inc , Meta Platforms Inc, and Amazon, could all be subject to new scrutiny in his country. The event was also attended by Doug Peterson, the Nebraska attorney general who has led tech-focused investigations, Republican Representative Ken Buck of Colorado, and Tim Wu, President Biden’s adviser on technology and competition policy. Kanter and Khan both commented on the rapidly growing political appetite for antitrust enforcement in the US. “There’s more alignment than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime with respect to the need for antitrust and competition law enforcement globally,” Kanter said.