“The Brotherhood has learned to use the very freedoms of democracy as tools to erode it from within.”
By Catholics for Catholics
President Donald Trump classified Muslim Brotherhood, one of the largest worldwide organizations of its kind, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Formed in Egypt in 1928, it has been operating in the United States since 1963.
Trump signed the executive order Monday, instructing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to begin designating certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists, according to Fox News.
Invoking the Immigration and Nationality Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the order cites the group’s participation in violence across the Middle East, including rocket attacks on Israel following the October 7, 2023, assault.
The move begins a 30-day review led by the State and Treasury Departments to identify Brotherhood chapters in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon for possible designation, which could freeze assets, restrict travel, and criminalize material support for affiliated entities.
“The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has developed into a transnational network with chapters across the Middle East and beyond,” Trump’s executive order reads. “Relevant here, its chapters in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt engage in or facilitate and support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm their own regions, United States citizens, and United States interests.
TRUMP VOWS TO DESIGNATE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. pic.twitter.com/Zwt61sRRuI
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 24, 2025
Trump’s action against the Muslim Brotherhood comes less than a week after a similar procedure by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, according to The Daily Wire. The Republican governor on Tuesday designated the group and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as “foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations.”
“The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world,’” said Abbott. “The actions taken by the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR to support terrorism across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment are unacceptable.”
The council has countered by contesting and suing Texas over the designation.
Long connected to violent extremist groups such as Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood has in its 1988 charter identified Hamas as “one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine.”
Still, Muslim Brotherhood groups in the West, including in the United States, have condemned the use of violence, but according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “it is almost always born of prudence, not principle.”
“The Brotherhood tends to be far more conservative than al-Qaeda or the Islamic State when calculating the probable cost of a turn toward violence. Its branches hesitate to risk the wrath of national governments. The Brotherhood also places a premium on remaining able to gradually promote its brand of Islam, especially within Muslim majority countries,” says a foundation brief on the Muslim Brotherhood written last month.
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