Trump Says He Will Designate Muslim Brotherhood as Terror Organization

President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that he intends to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, a decision he said would be issued “in the strongest and most powerful terms,” and that the “final documents are being drawn.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt nearly a century ago, operates through affiliated parties and movements across the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Critics have long accused it of serving as an ideological engine for radical Islamist movements, while its supporters describe it as a political and religious network. U.S. officials have debated its status for years, but Trump’s statement marks the clearest declaration yet that Washington intends to formally label the group as a terror organization.

Speaking later in the day, after the IDF announced the killing of Hezbollah’s second-in-command and military commander Haytham Ali Tabtabai, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump for the move. “This is an organization that endangers stability throughout the Middle East and beyond the Middle East as well,” Netanyahu said. “Therefore, the State of Israel has already outlawed part of the organization, and we are working to complete this action soon.”

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also supported the announcement, writing that “once again President Donald Trump makes the right call regarding terror groups.”

The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) issued a statement welcoming Trump’s intention. ISGAP said it “commends the fact that the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology is now being taken seriously at the highest levels of the U.S. government,” adding that its research has linked the Brotherhood’s doctrine to extremist movements already designated as terrorist groups. The organization warned that the Brotherhood’s teachings pose dangers to “Jews, women, minorities, and democratic institutions.”

Trump’s declaration follows a separate announcement days earlier by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who said he would designate both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations and as 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,’” Abbott said. He added that their actions “to support terrorism across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment are unacceptable.”