President Trump on Monday called for the U.S. to weigh labeling some Middle Eastern affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist groups, taking aim at the controversial Islamist movement.
In an executive order, the president directed his administration to consider whether to designate Muslim Brotherhood chapters 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, and 45 days after that to take action.
The order claimed the three countries’ Muslim Brotherhood affiliates “engage in or facilitate and support violence and destabilization campaigns.”
It accused the military wing of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Lebanese chapter of helping launch rockets at Israel after the terrorist attack on Oct, 7, 2023, and alleged a leader of the Egyptian chapter “encouraged violent attacks against U.S. partners” after the attack.
The White House also said members of the Jordanian chapter have “long provided material support to the militant wing of Hamas,” itself a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot and a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.
If the groups are designated as foreign terrorist organizations, it would become illegal under U.S. law to knowingly provide funding or other material support to them. The designation can also lead to travel bans against members or the freezing of funds held in U.S. banks.
Founded in Egypt almost a century ago, the Muslim Brotherhood is an influential political movement in much of the Middle East. The leader of a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated political party, Mohammed Morsi, was elected president of Egypt in 2012 after the fall of dictator Hosni Mubarak, though Morsi was ousted 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 critics — including U.S. allies — saying some affiliated groups have engaged in violence or espoused extremist views. Egypt’s military government formally banned the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013, and Jordan banned the group earlier this year.
“President Trump is confronting 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 Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and banned it from buying land. Abbott made a similar move toward the Council on American-Islamic Relations, drawing a lawsuit from the civil rights group.
The president has used the executive power to designate groups as terrorist organizations broadly.
His administration labeled several Latin American drug cartels as foreign terrorist groups earlier this year, and recently applied the designation to Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles, as the administration puts more pressure on the Venezuelan government and President Nicolás Maduro. Some analysts say it’s not a centralized drug cartel in the traditional sense, but is instead a loosely defined network of government officials accused of links to organized crime and drug trafficking.
The administration earlier this year also designated four European groups that it said are affiliated with antifa. Mr. Trump has labeled antifa as a domestic terror organization, though there isn’t a formal system for designating U.S.-based terror groups, and antifa usually refers to a loose collection of left-wing activists rather than a single organization with centralized leadership.
Mr. Trump also considered labeling the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror group in his first term.