U.S. Officials Convene 66 Nations on Political Violence

Secretary of State Marco Rubio convened the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism at the State Department on July 16, drawing representatives from 66 of more than 80 invited countries. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, FBI Director Kash Patel and Education Secretary Linda McMahon took part in the session.

Rubio stated that counterterrorism policy had developed a blind spot toward violence from the political left. He grouped communists, anarchists, Marxists and anti-capitalists into a movement driven by hostility toward Western civilization and called its members enemies of civilization.

Rubio added that leftist groups were increasingly working alongside hostile foreign states including Cuba and Iran. Miller said left-wing extremists use civil liberties arguments to escape punishment and that those appeals must fall on deaf ears. He described the leftist as driven by envy, hatred and jealousy and called the targets of the initiative enemies of civilization.

Bessent said the Treasury Department would deploy the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the IRS Criminal Investigation to identify funding behind political violence. He added that the Treasury would act based on suspected unlawful conduct rather than beliefs or ideologies and must respect Americans constitutional rights to speech, association and assembly.

National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 ordered Joint Terrorism Task Forces to investigate organizations, individuals and financial networks connected to political violence. It directed the Treasury to trace suspected funding and the IRS to refer tax-exempt organizations and their officers for possible investigation and prosecution.

2025 President Donald Trump designated Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. Rubio designated four European antifa-linked groups as foreign terrorist organizations and separately designated individuals linked to those groups as specially designated global terrorists.