On November 24, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order that does not—yet—designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Instead, it launches a tightly timed interagency process to determine whether specific chapters in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan meet the legal threshold for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. The distinction matters: this is a 75-day clock, not a blanket ban, and the outcome will depend on whether Washington can isolate violent actors without criminalizing political Islam across the region.
The order arrives against the backdrop of October 7, 2023, and its long tail. The White House fact sheet alleges that the Lebanese chapter's military wing aided rocket attacks toward Israel, that a senior Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader encouraged violence against U.S. partners, and that Jordanian Brotherhood leaders have materially supported Hamas's militant operations. These claims will now be tested through a formal review, with a joint report from the Secretaries of State and Treasury, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence due within 30 days, followed by designation actions—if warranted—within 45 days thereafter.
A 97-year-old movement, decentralized by design
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna as a social-reform and anti-colonial movement rooted in Sunni revivalism. Over nearly a century it evolved into a transnational network with local chapters that vary widely in ideology, structure, and tactics. Some function as charities and political parties; others have spawned or sheltered violent offshoots. Hamas, established during the first Palestinian intifada in 1987–88, originated as the Brotherhood's Palestinian branch and remains the most prominent example of that militant trajectory.
The movement is not a monolith. It operates without a single global command, complicating any effort to apply blanket legal measures. Egypt outlawed the Brotherhood in 2013 following the military ouster of Mohamed Morsi, the movement's candidate who won the presidency in 2012. Jordan, after years of tolerating the group's political arm, the Islamic Action Front, moved decisively in 2025 to ban organizations linked to the Brotherhood. The United States has previously designated two Egypt-based splinter factions—Liwa al-Thawra and Harakat Sawad Misr—but stopped short of targeting the broader organization or its major national chapters, mindful of the evidentiary burden and the risk of overreach.
The mechanics of designation—and the stakes
The legal architecture underpinning Trump's order is well established but increasingly stretched. Foreign Terrorist Organization designation under 8 U.S.C. § 1189 requires the Secretary of State to find that a foreign entity engages in terrorism or retains the intent and capacity to do so, and that such activity threatens U.S. nationals or national security. Designation criminalizes material support, triggers immigration bars, and authorizes asset freezes within U.S. jurisdiction.
Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) listings under Executive Order 13224 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), administered largely by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, enable broader asset blocking and secondary sanctions with a lower evidentiary threshold but limited judicial review. As Washington has expanded the use of these tools beyond traditional terror networks, critics warn of due-process deficits: reliance on classified evidence, minimal notice, and expansive "material support" definitions that can sweep in charities and advocacy groups far removed from violence.
Members are reading: Analysis of the evidentiary standards that will determine whether Washington wields a scalpel or a bludgeon across three key battlegrounds.
What comes next: a review period with regional echoes
The 30-day joint report, due in late December 2025, will set the parameters. It must identify which chapters or subdivisions meet statutory thresholds and recommend designation actions. Within 45 days of receiving that report, the State Department and Treasury must act. The interagency review will almost certainly examine financial flows, communications intercepts, and testimony from intelligence partners in Cairo, Amman, and Beirut. The White House's public allegations provide a starting hypothesis, but formal designation requires a legal record that can withstand minimal—though not robust—judicial scrutiny.
Regional allies are watching. Jordan's recent ban and arrests suggest Amman will interpret U.S. designation as a green light for further repression. Egypt, already deep into its own Brotherhood crackdown, may use the moment to press Washington for broader security cooperation. Lebanon, fractured and financially desperate, faces the risk that designating al-Jamaa's militant wing spills over into its fragile sectarian balance, especially as regional diplomacy on Gaza and Palestinian governance remains stalled.
The Executive Order is a test. Not of whether the Muslim Brotherhood includes actors who support or commit terrorism—that question was settled long ago with Hamas—but of whether the United States can deploy its most powerful legal tools with precision, isolating violent nodes without weaponizing counterterrorism law against political expression. The next 75 days will show whether this administration has the evidence, the discipline, and the will to make that distinction.
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