The United States has formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood branches in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon as terrorist organisations, marking a significant shift in Washington’s approach to the pan-Islamist movement and fulfilling long-standing demands from key Arab allies and conservative political forces within America.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the designations on Tuesday, describing them as the opening phase of a broader campaign to curtail the activities of Muslim Brotherhood chapters deemed threatening to US interests. The move follows through on commitments outlined in Executive Order 14362, which President Donald Trump had set in motion in November 2024.
“Today, as a first step in support of President Trump’s commitment to eliminate the capabilities and operations of Muslim Brotherhood chapters that pose a threat to the United States as described in Executive Order 14362, the United States is imposing terrorist designations against the Lebanese, Jordanian, and Egyptian chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Rubio said in an official statement.
“These designations reflect the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort to thwart Muslim Brotherhood chapters’ violence and destabilization wherever it occurs. The United States will use all available tools to deprive these Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism,” he added.
The designations carry substantial legal and financial consequences. Under US law, the government will freeze any assets held by the Muslim Brotherhood in the world’s largest economy and criminalise transactions with the designated groups. The move also severely restricts the ability of members to travel to the United States, effectively isolating the organisations from American financial systems and diplomatic channels.
Egypt, which has waged an unrelenting campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood for more than a decade, welcomed the US decision. The Egyptian foreign ministry issued a statement declaring that the terrorist designation “reflects the danger of this group and its extremist ideology and the direct threat it poses to regional and international security and stability.”
Founded in 1928 in Egypt by schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood emerged as one of the most influential Islamist movements of the twentieth century. Its ideology, rooted in the belief that Islam provides a comprehensive system for political, social, and economic life, spread across the Arab world and beyond, inspiring affiliated movements and political parties from North Africa to the Levant and the Gulf.
The movement’s trajectory in Egypt has been turbulent and marked by cycles of repression and brief political ascendance. Longtime Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak, who governed the country for nearly three decades, imposed a formal ban on the Muslim Brotherhood, though the organisation maintained a visible presence through its extensive network of social services, including hospitals, schools, and charitable initiatives that endeared it to many Egyptians living in poverty.
The Brotherhood’s fortunes shifted dramatically following the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, which toppled Mubarak and ushered in Egypt’s first democratic elections. In 2012, the movement’s political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, propelled Mohamed Morsi to the presidency, marking the first time the Brotherhood had held executive power in its home country.
Morsi’s tenure, however, proved short-lived and divisive. His government faced accusations of attempting to monopolise power, mismanaging the economy, and alienating secular and liberal constituencies. Mass protests erupted across Egypt in mid-2013, providing the pretext for then military chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to depose Morsi in a coup on July 3, 2013.
Since seizing power, Sisi has overseen a sweeping and brutal crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood. Thousands of members have been arrested, tried in mass court proceedings, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms or death. Morsi himself died in custody in 2019 under circumstances that human rights organisations have described as medical negligence amounting to state-sanctioned killing. The Egyptian government has classified the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation and systematically dismantled its infrastructure, driving the movement underground and into exile.
Egypt’s campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood has been supported by US-allied Gulf monarchies, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which view the organisation’s vision of a unified Islamic caliphate as an existential threat to their hereditary rule. Both nations have provided substantial financial and diplomatic backing to Sisi’s government and have themselves banned the Brotherhood and pursued its members within their borders.
The Trump administration’s justification for the designations centres heavily on alleged links between the Muslim Brotherhood branches and Hamas, the Palestinian armed group that has been classified as a terrorist organisation by the United States since 1997. The US Treasury Department stated that the Egyptian and Jordanian branches of the Brotherhood have coordinated with Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered a devastating Israeli military offensive in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced the majority of the territory’s population.
In Lebanon, where the Muslim Brotherhood operates as a Sunni Muslim movement, the State Department accused the organisation of aligning itself with Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group, in launching rocket attacks into Israel. The State Department claimed that the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood has “pushed for a more formal alignment with the Hizballah-Hamas axis,” a characterisation that reflects Washington’s broader concern about Iran’s influence across the region.
The Muslim Brotherhood has maintained significant political influence in Jordan, where its political wing, the Islamic Action Front, has historically been the main opposition force in parliament. In April 2024, the Jordanian government moved decisively against the movement, banning the Muslim Brotherhood and ordering the confiscation of its assets. Authorities accused the organisation of stockpiling weapons and plotting to destabilise the kingdom, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 and has long served as a key US ally in the region.
The US designation has been a long-sought objective of American conservative circles, where the Muslim Brotherhood has been portrayed as a shadowy threat to Western values and security. Some conservative commentators and politicians have promoted the unfounded conspiracy theory that the organisation is infiltrating the US government with the ultimate goal of imposing Islamic sharia law on American society. Republican lawmakers have repeatedly introduced legislation aimed at banning the Muslim Brotherhood and cutting off any financial support for the movement.
Previous US administrations, including those of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, had resisted designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, citing concerns about the breadth of the movement, its diverse ideological tendencies, and the potential diplomatic fallout. Analysts had warned that such a designation could strain relations with Turkey, whose president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has maintained deep ideological and political ties to the Brotherhood and has provided refuge to many of its exiled members.
Trump has cultivated a generally positive relationship with Erdogan despite significant policy disagreements, including over Turkey’s military interventions in Syria and its acquisition of Russian missile defence systems. The US president has also downplayed Erdogan’s fierce criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which the Turkish leader has characterised as genocide.
The designations signal a hardening of US policy toward Islamist political movements in the Middle East and align Washington more closely with the security priorities of Egypt and the Gulf states. However, the move is likely to deepen divisions within the region and may complicate American diplomatic efforts to stabilise conflict zones where Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups retain political influence or popular support.
The Muslim Brotherhood, once a dominant force across the Arab world, has been in steady retreat in recent years as authoritarian governments have systematically suppressed its activities. The US designations represent yet another blow to the movement’s legitimacy and operational capacity, though the organisation’s decentralised structure and deep social roots suggest that it will continue to survive, albeit in increasingly marginalised and fragmented forms.
