President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday that begins the process of designating certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood “as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt in 1928 that achieved political power in the nation briefly in 2012 before the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Egyptian government was overthrown in a 2013 coup.
The White House said the designation will help combat the group’s transnational network, which it said fuels terrorism and destabilization campaigns against U.S. interests and allies in the Middle East. A fact sheet accompanying the order cites connections between the Jordan Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, which was responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, among other alleged links to terrorist activity.
The designation will allow the United States to target the groups’ U.S.-based finances, collect military intelligence on them and prosecute individuals deemed to have provided “material support” to Muslim Brotherhood chapters with the terrorist designation.
The order calls for Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to recommend chapters for the terrorist designation within 45 days. A fact sheet issued by the White House said chapters in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan are among those to be considered for the designation.
The Trump administration considered designating the group a terrorist organization during the president’s first term after he met with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, who rose to power in the military coup in 2013 after he deposed his democratically elected predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader. Egypt designated the organization as terrorist in 2013 alongside several other Arab nations.
Unlike the effort in Trump’s first term, the new executive order calls for assigning the terror designation to specific chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood chapters share a common ideological foundation but lack international organizational unity.
A spokesman for the group did not immediately respond to an email seeking a comment on the designation.
Trump’s order comes the week after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) similarly designated the group. A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Florida), introduced legislation over the summer to create the designation as well.
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