Chairman Ronna McDaniel Warns Senate Republicans Against Resurrecting Failed AICOA

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As lawmakers consider reintroducing the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, Competitiveness Coalition Chairman Ronna McDaniel called on all U.S. Senate Republicans in a new letter to reject the dangerous, anti-business, and anti-innovation legislation. 

“Supporters of this big-government relic from the Biden years are currently seeking Republican cosponsors as Democrats look to put the ‘bipartisan’ label on it. Please don’t let them. The bill represents a direct assault on American innovation, free enterprise, and our technological supremacy,” McDaniel, a former four-term Republican National Committee Chair, began. “The AICOA would handcuff America’s leading tech platforms with heavy-handed European-style regulation modeled on the European Union’s (EU) Digital Markets Act (DMA). We have already seen the fallout in Europe: damaged user experiences, delayed product launches, stripped away consumer preferences, and driven up costs for smaller developers and American families.”

McDaniel continued: “The stakes are far greater than consumer convenience. In a world where Communist China is racing to dominate artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and the future digital economy, the AICOA would undermine America’s greatest competitive advantages. Why would we hobble our own champions while Beijing steals technology, subsidizes its national champions, and seeks to replace the free internet with authoritarian control?” 

McDaniel concluded with a warning of the potential ramifications of the legislation’s passage: “If liberals regain control of Congress or the White House, the AICOA — if enacted — could be weaponized to unleash an avalanche of regulation, litigation, and political punishment through its expansion of the statutory authority of agencies like the FTC and DOJ. The result would be fewer jobs, slower innovation, higher prices, and a less secure America. We urge you to stand with American workers, entrepreneurs, job creators and technological leaders. Please oppose the AICOA and any effort to Europeanize the internet or empower Washington bureaucrats to pick winners and losers in the most dynamic sector of our economy.”

Read Chairman McDaniel’s letter here.

For more information on the Competitiveness Coalition’s work, please visit competitivenesscoalition.com. Members of the press can contact the coalition at press@competitivenesscoalition.com.

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