Donald Trump’s administration has added four European left-wing groups to the U.S. government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, marking a global escalation of the president’s war on ideological opponents that treats “Antifa” similarly to the Islamic state.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration is designating Germany’s Antifa Ost, Italy-based International Revolutionary Front, and two organizations in Greece — Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self Defense — as both “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” and “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” that the administration claims are “conspiring to undermine the foundations of Western Civilization through their brutal attacks.”
“Groups affiliated with this movement ascribe to revolutionary anarchist or Marxist ideologies, including anti-Americanism, ‘anti-capitalism’ and anti-Christianity, using these to incite and justify violent assaults domestically and overseas,” Rubio said in a statement Thursday.
In September, the president signed an executive order singling out the militant antifascist movement and the people who financially support it as a “domestic terror organization.” There is no “domestic terrorist organization” designation under U.S. law, and Antifa is not a specific organization but a term that encompasses a wider ideologically driven movement against fascism.
But “foreign terrorist organization” labels could lead to financial sanctions, travel restrictions and federal law enforcement scrutiny, including surveillance and financial oversight of alleged connections in the United States.
That could include freezing assets belonging to anyone believed to be connected to the groups, and restrictions on U.S. citizens, organizations or companies from doing any transactions with them.
The latest designations, effective November 20, mark the first time that the movement has been labeled a foreign terrorist threat.
“There are extensive foreign ties, and I think that would be a very valid step,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said during a White House roundtable discussion on Antifa in September.
The administration is eager to seek legal justifications to stamp out left-wing dissent and connect his Democratic opponents and critics to the movement; officials, media personalities and right-wing allies have repeatedly accused Antifa of violent attacks against federal law enforcement while baselessly alleging that Democratic elected officials and groups that financially support Democratic candidates and causes are financially supporting them and covering up their crimes.
The president also issued a national security directive in September that orders federal law enforcement agencies to “dismantle” groups accused of supporting acts of domestic terror “before” they’re committed, pointing to “anti-Christian,” “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American” views as identifiable markers.
“Fighting crime is more than just getting the bad guy off the streets,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said during September’s roundtable.
“It’s breaking down the organization brick by brick,” she said.
Just like we did with cartels, we're going to take this same approach, President Trump, with Antifa: Destroy the entire organization from top to bottom.”
Antifa encompasses individuals and loosely affiliated groups in a broader militant subculture — often physically confronting far-right groups in the streets — that has become a global right-wing bogeyman in the wake of nationwide protests, with some turning violent, over the last decade.
Since 2001, the vast majority of groups added to the foreign terrorist organizations have largely been connected to Islamic extremist groups and militants that have threatened the United States, such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
But the 23 entities that the Trump administration has added or plans to add mark the largest single-year additions to the list since it was established in 1997.
Critics have warned against conflating militant antifascist activism with other ideologically motivated violence responsible for large-scale terror attacks.
“There seems to be no justification for how they determined any of these groups are foreign terrorist groups,” according to sociologist Stanislav Vysotsky, author of American Antifa and Antifa: What Everyone Needs to Know. “And certainly no evidence that they have direct ties to any U.S. antifa groups. Just like with the rest of this antifa panic, they’re just randomly creating boogeymen.”
He said the administration likely won’t be able to prove links between domestic Antifa groups and foreign groups on the State Department’s latest list, “but that won’t stop them from bringing the full force of federal law enforcement against antifascists domestically.”
