The Trump administration has designated three branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist entities, following through on a November executive order. While the State Department has designated the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist entity, the Treasury Department has designated the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT).
Both the Egyptian and the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood chapters provide material support to Hamas.
“These designations reflect the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort to thwart Muslim Brotherhood chapters’ violence and destabilization wherever it occurs,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “The United States will use all available tools to deprive these Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism.”
Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John. K. Hurley stated that while the Muslim Brotherhood branches display a “peaceful public façade,” they have “conspired to support Hamas’s terrorism and undermine the sovereignty of their own national governments.”
The November executive order set in motion “a process by which certain chapters or other subdivisions of the Muslim Brotherhood shall be considered for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” the order states. It adds that the United States will “cooperate with its regional partners to eliminate the capabilities and operations of Muslim Brotherhood chapters designated as foreign terrorist organizations pursuant to section 3 of this order, deprive those chapters of resources, and thereby end any threat such chapters pose to United States nationals or the national security of the United States.”
According to a White House fact sheet on the order, the Trump administration aims to “eliminate the designated chapters’ capabilities and operations, deprive them of resources, and end any threat such chapters pose to U.S. nationals and the national security of the United States.”
