Marco Rubio. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP Photo.
Secretary of State Rubio announced the new ‘counterterrorism’ strategy during a conference in Washington despite the lack of evidence showing a threat from left-wing groups
At a global counterterrorism summit in Washington on 17 July, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the US government is refocusing its international security apparatus to target transnational “far-left terror” groups.
Rubio told officials from more than 60 countries that left-wing violence had long been overlooked and was a “blind spot” of US intelligence agencies.
“We can, and we must identify and map this threat and rebuild our counterterrorism architecture to defeat it,” Rubio said.
“The conference marks the Trump administration’s most significant effort yet to internationalize a counterterrorism focus that critics say is not supported by data,” Reuters wrote.
In May, the White House held a law-enforcement workshop focused on the alleged threat posed by far-left groups. It will co-host a second workshop with Germany, Rubio said.
In recent months, Washington has designated four European anarchist groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Antifa Ost from Germany, the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front from Italy, and Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense from Greece.
Rubio announced a new visa restriction policy that would target members of groups “who have supported or incited” violence or economic sabotage.
The secretary of state cited property damage and looting during demonstrations that erupted across the US in the summer of 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd as an example of left-wing violence.
Members of Antifa, an informal network of anarchist activists, participated in the George Floyd protests.
Speaking alongside Rubio at the conference, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller claimed leftists were driven by “envy and hatred.” He said Antifa demonstrators were “all deformed in some way, in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism.”
Eleven Democratic lawmakers wrote to Rubio on Wednesday saying there was no evidence of a threat from left-wing groups while calling the counterterrorism policy proposal a “politically partisan document.”
The letter, sent by Democratic lawmakers Gregory Meeks and William Keating of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, raised concerns that designating groups as far-left terror organizations would allow authorities to crack down on lawful protests and political opponents.
“We strongly urge the Department to return its focus to a serious mission set that is definitionally apolitical, data-driven, and rooted in reality, instead of rubberstamping the political priorities of extremists within the Administration whose views and policies put US national security – and the American people – at risk,” wrote the lawmakers.
Rubio also claimed that Iranian networks were “increasingly intimately tied to leftist militant groups around the world,” without providing any evidence.
He also accused Cuba’s communist government of helping “build the far left” in the US, also without offering evidence.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar attended the conference as well. In his comments, he claimed there was a “growing operational alliance” between “leftist activism” and “Islamist terrorist organizations.”
“Terror groups have an operational alliance today with radical leftist elements in western democracies, in Europe, in Latin America, in Africa and beyond,” Saar stated in a readout from his office.
Both US President Donald Trump and the Israel lobby in the US were angered over the role of left-wing activists in organizing protests on university campuses in opposition to Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Trump and the Israel lobby pressured universities to crack down on the protests in the spring of 2024, including expelling students involved in leading them and deporting foreign students who participated.
On 10 July, left-wing Marxist activist Fergie Chambers was arrested in Ibiza, Spain, following an international arrest warrant and extradition request issued by the US government.
Chambers was known for using his inherited wealth in support of left-wing causes. He donated over $1 million to causes related to Palestine, including helping Palestinian victims of the genocide in Gaza.
