President Trump on Monday called on the United States to consider labeling some Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups in the Middle East as terrorist groups, targeting the controversial Islamist movement.
In an executive order, the president ordered his administration to consider whether to designate sections of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan or elsewhere as foreign terrorist organizations. He gave Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent 30 days to submit a report, then 45 days to act.
The order claims that the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated with the three countries “engages in or facilitates and supports campaigns of violence and destabilization.”
It accuses the military wing of the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood of helping launch rockets into Israel after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, and accuses a leader of the Egyptian branch of having “encouraged violent attacks against American partners” after the attack.
The White House also said members of the Jordan branch “have long provided material support to the militant wing of Hamas,” itself an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.
If these groups are designated as foreign terrorist organizations, it will become illegal under U.S. law to knowingly provide them with funding or other material support. This designation may also lead to travel bans against members or the freezing of funds held in U.S. banks.
Founded in Egypt nearly a century ago, the Muslim Brotherhood is an influential political movement across much of the Middle East. The leader of a political party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Morsi, was elected president of Egypt in 2012, after the fall of dictator Hosni Mubarak, but Morsi was overthrown by the military the following year.
Some Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt and elsewhere have renounced violence. But the group has long been controversial, with its critics — including U.S. allies — saying some affiliated groups have engaged in violence or espoused extremist views. The Egyptian military government formally banned the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013, and Jordan banned the group earlier this year.
“President Trump is taking on the Muslim Brotherhood’s transnational network, which fuels terrorism and destabilization campaigns against U.S. interests and allies in the Middle East,” the White House said in a fact sheet Monday.
Mr. Trump’s order comes about a week after that of Texas Governor Greg Abbott. declared the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization, and banned him from buying land. Abbott made a similar move toward the Council on American-Islamic Relations, sue of the civil rights group.
The president has used executive power to designate groups as terrorist organizations broadly.
His administration designated several Latin American drug cartels as foreign terrorist groups earlier this year and recently applied that designation to Venezuela. Poster of the Sunsas the administration puts more pressure on the Venezuelan government and President Nicolas Maduro. Some analysts say it is not a centralized drug cartel in the traditional sense, but rather a vaguely defined network of government officials accused of having ties to organized crime and drug trafficking.
The administration also named four European groups earlier this year that it says are affiliated with Antifa. Mr. Trump has called Antifa a domestic terrorist organization, although there is no formal system for designating U.S.-based terrorist groups, and Antifa generally refers to a dispersed group of left-wing activists rather than a single organization with centralized leadership.
Mr. Trump also considered labeling the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group during his first term.
