Trump Administration Releases 16-Page Counterterrorism Strategy Prioritizing Cartels, Jihadists, and Violent Left-Wing Extremists

Sebastian Gorka introduced the Trump administration’s counter-terrorism strategy on a call with journalists on Wednesday. The 16-page memo he authored identifies three major types of terror groups as priorities: narcoterrorists and transnational gangs, legacy Islamist terrorists, and violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and anti-fascists.

The document claims President Trump has affected a complete revision of how we defeat threats to America predicated on national sovereignty and civilizational confidence and the objective of destroying the groups who would kill Americans or hurt our interests as a free nation.

This applies to cartels, Jihadists, left-wing violent extremists, state actors and state sponsors, or any future terror threat. The memo makes no mention of far-right or white supremacist ideology. It singles out radically pro-transgender and anti-American ideology for neutralization.

With regard to groups on the left dubbed violent secular political groups, the memo states: We will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa, and use law enforcement tools to cripple them operationally before they can maim or kill the innocent.

The strategy claims immigration has turned Europe into an incubator of terror threats. It calls on European allies to halt its willful decline.

The memo accuses past administrations of having weaponized the intelligence community. It makes half a dozen references to the Biden administration’s supposed failures. Sebastian Gorka, Donald Trump’s counter-terrorism czar, described critics of the administration’s war in Iran as testicularly challenged on the call with journalists.

Pdf. Gorka was photographed outside the White House on 18 December 2025. His selection as senior director for counter-terrorism drew ridicule and consternation even from within the ranks of the right, The Guardian reported.

The Guardian reported that critics described the document as both completely Trumpian and an alarming escalation in rhetoric. They warned about the expanded use of a terrorism framework as pretext to deny basic civil and political rights of targeted individuals.