The US State Department and Treasury are currently reviewing whether Muslim Brotherhood (MB) affiliations in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt are to be designated Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) or Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). This is in the wake of President Donald Trump issuing an executive order asking for the departments to repost the review within a month, but the ground work on the MB has been there for a long time.
In August, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that designating the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organisation was “in the works”, but emphasised that the process would be lengthy and cautious, partly because the MB has many branches and affiliates that must be reviewed individually.
In 2019, during his first term, Trump tried to ban the group but failed despite bipartisan support. Things have changed since then, and this time the president is ruling mainly by decrees circumventing Congress and its lengthy debates. Trump vowed the ban of the MB would “be done in the strongest and most powerful terms. Final documents are being drawn.”
The White House stated, “President Trump is confronting the Muslim Brotherhood’s transnational network, which fuels terrorism and destabilisation campaigns against US interests and allies in the Middle East.”
The MB was established in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan Al-Banna, with the goal of creating an Islamic state, or caliphate. But it is Sayyed Qutb, another prominent figure who was active in the MB from 1940s through the 1960s, whose advocacy of “jihad” is thought to have influenced later jihadists, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri of Al-Qaeda. Though some refer to the rise of the group as a form of opposition to the British occupation of Egypt at the time, others trace the group’s funding to British support. It is also said that the occupation used the MB against both the monarchy and nationalist political parties.
Many have hailed the US decision to ban the MB, while others questioned its impact on militant groups in the region. Trump’s Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka, a senior member of the president’s National Security Council, described the executive order as a “tectonic act”. But in a lengthy article in the Israeli daily Haaretz political analyst Zvi Bar’el questioned the significance of the ban, noting that “even when it does take effect and apparently include confiscation of property, the freezing of bank accounts, a ban on entering the United States and arrest warrants against its activists, it will be far from a ‘tectonic’ campaign against the movement. Nor will it really limit the MB’s activity.”
For example, the executive order mentioned “certain chapters” of the MB in Egypt and Jordan. As Bar’el concludes, “Jordan and Egypt don’t need an American executive order to act against the Muslim Brotherhood, and it won’t change their complex relations with the group. It is also not expected to affect Hamas’ standing in the Israel-neighbouring countries.”
In fact, some wondered why it didn’t mention countries like Turkey and Qatar, and commentary in the Israeli media hinted that both countries might work to dilute the impact of the American move.
Others feel the decision “goes beyond the immediate security rationale to be viewed as a manifestation of broader structural changes in international relations”, as Mehmet Rakipoglu from the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter wrote in Turkey Today. He argues that “the designation is a strategic component of a geopolitical realignment. The aim is to marginalise non-state actors and reshape regional security architectures, as well as redefine religious movements within the global political landscape.”
That last conclusion looks very ambitious, but as Trump’s move might encourage other countries in the West to target the MB, the strategic goal looks plausible. Across the Atlantic, the European Union (EU) has long maintained a more nuanced position on the MB, refraining from proscribing it. Yet Trump’s move could empower political forces within key European states, such as the UK, France, Austria and Germany, which have long advocated for a more aggressive line against Islamist movements.
Rakipoglu notes that a potential European shift towards criminalising the MB “would have profound implications far beyond foreign policy. It would directly impact the operational capacity of Muslim civil society organisations, charities, and advocacy groups across Europe, as many are perceived to have ideological links to the Brotherhood.”
Even before the American ban is applied, voices in Europe, especially from the political right and far-right, have started to call for similar action. The founder and CEO of Candy Capital, Nick Candy wrote in the British Daily Mail calling for a similar ban of the MB in UK. He exclaimed, “if Trump and Arab nations can see the dangers of the terror-supporting Muslim Brotherhood, why can’t we?”
Previous efforts to proscribe the group in the UK were watered down through reviews and committee reports. Now, voices like Candy’s and the likes of Reform Party leader and Trump ally Nigel Farage will grow louder and might have an impact. In his Mail piece, Candy mentioned a “sensational example” that resonates well with the public mood.
“One of its [the MB’s] operatives, Abdelrahmen Adnan Abouelela, fled Egypt for London before he could face charges of bomb-making and plotting to blow up electricity pylons and gas pipes – charges for which he was later convicted in his absence and sentenced to seven years in jail. What did Britain do, in spite of knowing about his terrorist conviction? We put him up in a four-star hotel in west London for 17 months while we considered his asylum application. And during his stay, he raped a woman in Hyde Park – a crime for which he was jailed for eight and a half years in May,” Candy wrote.
It is almost the same narrative that President Trump and his team in Washington uses to justify harsh measures against all immigrants, not only Islamists, by singling out criminal examples. With the current rise of an anti-immigration, far-right sentiment in the UK and many EU countries, the chances of Trump’s actions against the MB being replicated elsewhere are high.
Irrespective of the level of American proscription, the MB and its affiliates – including militant and terrorist factions – are not going to disappear. They might be driven “underground” or into “hibernation” as the MB has always done when the tide turned against it. But the American move is significant, not so much weakening the group but for encouraging others in the West to follow suit.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 December, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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