Why President Trump’s Executive Order on the Muslim Brotherhood Grants the Group the Legitimacy It Seeks

A Critical Analysis of a Geopolitical Miscalculation

On 24 November 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order titled “Designation of Certain Muslim Brotherhood Chapters as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” This order initiates a formal process to evaluate and potentially designate specific chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood—a transnational Islamist organisation founded in Egypt in 1928—as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). The move targets chapters in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, accusing them of fuelling terrorism, supporting groups like Hamas, and destabilising U.S. interests in the Middle East, particularly in the wake of the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel.

While ostensibly a robust national security measure, this executive order is a profound strategic miscalculation. It is a policy of theatre, not of substance. By selectively designating only certain, already moribund chapters rather than the organisation as a whole, the Trump administration has inadvertently performed a remarkable act of legitimisation. It has officially endorsed the Muslim Brotherhood’s core narrative, reinforcing the group’s long-standing argument that it is fundamentally a political movement, and that violence is the work of a rogue minority.

In seeking to appear tough on terrorism, the Trump administration has instead revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of its adversary. It has targeted the Brotherhood’s shadow while leaving its body untouched, and in the process, has granted it a legitimacy it could never have achieved on its own.