Economy, finance and labor

Executive Order 13725: Steps to Increase Competition and Better Inform Consumers and Workers to Support Continued Growth of the American Economy

President: Barack Obama

Directed agencies to identify and pursue actions that promote competition and improve information for consumers and workers.

Status: Completed/expired. Is Executive Order 13725 still in effect? No. Executive Order 13725 is completed or expired. See Federal Register record.

What does Executive Order 13725 do?

EO 13725 asked executive agencies to use existing authority to identify barriers to entry, anticompetitive conduct and information gaps. Agencies submitted initial actions and recommendations in 2016 and were told to report semiannually. The order has not been expressly revoked, but its Obama-era reporting process ended in practice; Biden’s separate EO 14036 expanded competition policy in 2021 and President Trump revoked that later order in 2025.

Administration position: The order did not rewrite antitrust statutes or empower agencies to prohibit lawful conduct without their own statutory authority and required process.
SignedApril 15, 2016
Initial deadlines30 and 60 days
CoordinatorNational Economic Council

Before and after

Before the order

Competition policy centered principally on antitrust enforcement and agency-specific initiatives.

After the order

Agencies produced a government-wide list of regulatory and information actions, later overtaken by new administration policies.

Who had to do what

Agency / officeActionTiming / position
Executive agenciesIdentify and pursue lawful competition actionsOriginal cycle completed
National Economic CouncilCollect reports and coordinateAdministration-specific
DOJ and FTCEnforce antitrust lawContinuing independently

What happened next

EO 13725 launched the initiative.

EO 14036 created a separate broader policy.

EO 14337 revoked EO 14036.