The Executive Order signed by US President Donald Trump on 24 November designating specific chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organisations is not just a punitive bureaucratic measure, nor is it a narrow political reaction detached from international trends. Rather, it marks a pivotal historical moment that signals the erosion of a US foreign policy ‘grey-zone’.
Trump’s edict marks a rupture with the traditional American approach that has long sought to separate ideological discourse from material violence. Redefining its relationship with political Islam, the US has effectively declared that the discursive duality long embedded in the Brotherhood’s literature—projecting a language of rights and democracy to Western audiences while internalising the concept of Hakimiyyah (divine sovereignty)—is no longer acceptable within US national security calculations.
Founded in Egypt in 1928, the Brotherhood has long relied on ‘Caliphate nostalgia’ as an emotional driver and placed a risky wager on US elections. But the group now faces a dilemma: whether to return to underground operations. Its terrorist designation in the US changes the landscape; the Brotherhood now faces existential questions over its leadership, structure, and alliances. This may compel a radical overhaul, which may include a return to the clandestine operations that marked its early years.
Shifts in perception
For the Brotherhood, ‘going underground’ in the US would be epochal. To see why, it helps to understand how the group came to operate in the West for decades, when it benefited from the ‘grey zone.’ In this cognitive vacuum within Western institutions regarding the nature of political Islam, the Brotherhood presented itself as a moderate bulwark against jihadist Salafist groups such as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS).
The prevailing view was that engaging movements that adopted political action—even when grounded in conservative religious references—was better than trying to dry up the sources of radical violence. This thesis guided Western decision-making for years, treating political Islam as a functional partner. The Trump administration has now dismantled that premise.
The intelligence underpinning the new measures reflects growing concerns within US security circles about any intellectual and perhaps even organisational links between the Brotherhood, its ideology, and violent groups. Rather than seeing the Brotherhood as an alternative to extremism, it is now increasingly seen as an ‘incubator’, facilitating the transition from traditional religiosity to radical ideas such as Al-Wala’ wal-Bara’ (Loyalty and Disavowal).
For years, political Islam relied on American institutional protection against terrorist designation, whether that was through PR networks or links to political parties. Trump's move has exposed the flaws in these calculations, as the Brotherhood failed to grasp the shifts in public sentiment. No longer granted immunity, political Islam is seen not only as a security threat, but as a challenge to liberal values and social cohesion.
From a narrow counter-terrorism file, it therefore becomes a broader debate about identity protection and constitutional principles. However, the designation cannot be understood in isolation from the febrile US socio-political climate, within which there is a discernible increase in populism and hostility toward immigrants. In this context, the Brotherhood can claim that its targeting is part of a broader collective punishment of Islam. Such a narrative, which fuses security policy with identity politics, may find resonance among segments of the Muslim community, thereby complicating efforts to isolate the group.
