On January 31st America’s Department of Justice surprised investors by saying it would challenge a planned merger between Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, and Grupo Modelo, a Mexican one. European governments seem keener than ever to protect their national champions. Italy’s government, for example, recently set up a fund to invest in companies of “major national interest”. Meanwhile, China’s antitrust arm in the Ministry of Commerce is starting to make a nuisance of itself, not least by taking ages to make its mind up. It claims the power to review any deal in which the combined company would have $63m in Chinese sales and $1.5 billion of global sales—a ridiculously low threshold.  Article