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There has been a resurgence of political terrorism, transnational in design and far left in doctrine. This threat demands a response that draws upon the distinct and combined strengths of every government, stressed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the recent Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism. In response, the Treasury Department is bringing the full weight of its authorities to defend the integrity of the U.S. global financial systems. Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence seeks to identify, disrupt, and disable illicit foreign funds that threaten the homeland. The U.S. is extending its mission to meet an evolving threat, said Secretary Bessent. Old ideological boundaries are giving way to new operational alliances. “The unified front between international Marxism and radical Islamic movements need not share the same ultimate vision to share the same immediate enemy of free and self-governing societies,” noted Secretary Bessent. “These terrorists understand an enduring truth. Societies are rarely subverted from afar until they have first been weakened from within.” Some of these activities are overt: bombings, assassinations, and organized violence in our streets. Others are quieter: campaigns to suppress speech, intimidate political opposition, and sabotage our national institutions. Regardless of the form they take, noted Secretary Bessent, “violence requires money, channels through which funding can move, and institutions behind which it can hide. Increasingly, legitimate nonprofit and charitable structures are being exploited as a mechanism to conceal the movement of illicit funds to support political terrorism.” Nonprofits and charities are often thought of as good, but the very qualities that make these institutions worthy of the public’s trust can also make them appealing to those who endeavor to exploit them, explained Secretary Bessent. Treasury is expanding its efforts to identify organizations that abuse charitable and nonprofit structures as vehicles for illicit finance. In the fall, the United States designated four far-left Antifa extremist groups abroad as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, denying them access to the U.S. financial system and depriving them of resources they need to carry out attacks. Meanwhile, under President Trump, Treasury has also sanctioned 17 sham charities and nonprofit organizations for funding Hamas’s terrorist activities and operations. “As Treasury continues to map and disrupt the flow of funding that enables these entities to operate, no terror organization should delude itself into the belief that its financing lies beyond our reach,” warned Secretary Bessent. “To be clear, in the fight against domestic terrorism, we must respect the constitutional rights, freedom of speech, association, and assembly of all Americans,” assured Secretary Bessent. The Treasury Department will do its part to identify illicit funding; dismantle the networks that fund political terrorism; pursue those who enable political violence; and deepen collaboration with international allies for as long as this work requires.
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“Far-left political terrorism is not a recent-day, modern novelty,” declared Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the recent Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism. For most of the modern era, it was the dominant form of political violence. “Here in the United States, the share of left-wing terrorist attacks and plots has risen to levels not seen in decades,” noted Secretary Rubio. “In Germany, far-left violence has jumped by more than 40 percent in just the last year alone. In Greece, more than 80 percent of radical violence is now driven by far-left and anarchist actors.” There has been “an all-out assault on our immigration officers, sniper attacks, explosives, armed ambushes,” stated Secretary Rubio. “A transgender shooter opening fire on Catholic elementary school students as they pray, his gun marked with slogans like, ‘Where is your God now?’ A health care executive executed in cold blood in the streets. Multiple assassination attempts on a sitting president. And the murder of the greatest conservative activist of a generation,” [Charlie Kirk] who was shot and killed while speaking to a crowd of students. “This is a distinctive and unique evil,” warned Secretary Rubio. “It is a poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice and liberation, an overwhelming need to tear down what greater men have built, to wreck what is beautiful and what is right.” These architects of revolutionary violence pose a transnational threat, declared Secretary Rubio. Antifa militants, for example, travel from across Europe and to the Americas to participate in each other’s attacks, to funnel propaganda and training materials and target information through shared encrypted channels, moving through underground networks of safe houses and finance, and sustain their operations through transnational funds. And they work alongside hostile foreign states that share their mission, like Iranian proxy networks who are increasingly tied to leftist militant groups around the world. The Cuban regime’s sprawling intelligence network helped to build the far-left in the United States and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. Under President Donald Trump, for the first time, the United States is building the strategy to defeat the scourge of far-left terror. The President signed National Security Presidential Memorandum number 7, outlining a comprehensive strategy to investigate and disrupt Antifa terror networks and their allies. Last November, the State Department designated four violent far-left extremist groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and there will be more designations soon. In December, the State Department announced Rewards for Justice offering up to $10 million for information disrupting the financing behind these groups. It is time for the people of the civilized world to defend themselves, to stand united against this encroaching darkness and fight.