On November 24, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order directing the State and Treasury Departments to begin designating certain branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs).
The initial order specifically named three Brotherhood branches located in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. In Lebanon, the group operates as the Al-Fajr Forces, a military wing of the Islamic Group. In Jordan, authorities arrested a cell accused of smuggling weapons to Hamas in Gaza in April 2025. Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928, has seen frequent crackdowns under the current regime. Hamas, the Gaza branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, has been listed as an FTO since 1997.
Notably absent from Trump’s order are Muslim Brotherhood-supporting regimes in Qatar and Turkey, both of which back Brotherhood chapters that engage directly in terrorism. To qualify for designation under Section 219 of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, a group must be foreign, engage in or retain capability to engage in terrorism (defined as kinetic violence), and threaten U.S. nationals or national security. The order cites such activities occurring in “the Levant and other parts of the Middle East,” but not within the United States itself.
A significant challenge for designating the overall Muslim Brotherhood stems from its decentralized structure: it has evolved into a “sprawling network of national branches, ideological allies, and autonomous affiliates” with no centralized headquarters or unified command, as noted in a November 24, 2025, report by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) authored by Mark Dubowitz and Mariam Wahba.
The Trump administration’s focus on kinetic violence overlooks the Brotherhood’s primary modus operandi: subversion from within. The group’s 1991 “Explanatory Memorandum” describes its “process of settlement” as a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” aimed at eliminating Western civilization through internal sabotage. This strategy, known as the “Long March Through the Institutions,” involves infiltrating social institutions, government agencies, media, and faith communities over decades—similar to tactics employed by communist movements. Under U.S. law, subversion is not criminalized like sedition or treason due to the First Amendment.
The growing influence of Islamic law (shariah) and practices such as hijra presents a new challenge. In Texas, Governor Gregg Abbott has launched an investigation into Islamic courts and tribunals in his state. Experts warn that recognizing subversion as a critical threat is essential to safeguarding Western civilization and American institutions from internal decay.
