Al-Yurae- U.S. President Donald Trump has reaffirmed his intention to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), a move that would mark a significant escalation in Washington’s approach to political Islam and its networks across the Middle East and Africa. In comments to the outlet “Just the News,” Trump stated that the designation would be issued “in the strongest possible terms,” adding that the final documents are currently being prepared and that the measure will be framed in a binding and stringent form.
This initiative revives discussions first launched during Trump’s earlier term in office, when the White House announced in 2019 that the administration was working to classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization. Such a designation would open the door to sanctions against one of the oldest and most influential Islamist movements to emerge from Egypt and spread across the Arab and Muslim worlds.
At the time, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders indicated in an email statement that the president had consulted his national security team and regional leaders who shared his concerns, and that the proposed designation was moving through an internal review process. The current drive suggests a renewed political will to translate those deliberations into a concrete legal framework.
Historical roots of the Brotherhood in Sudan
Since the Muslim Brotherhood first appeared in Sudan in the mid-1950s, the movement has played a central role in reshaping the country’s political landscape, often at the expense of stability and social cohesion. The Brotherhood grew by exploiting the gaps within traditional parties, religious institutions, and student and professional unions, gradually embedding itself in key sectors of public life.
Under President Jaafar Nimeiri, who seized power in a military coup, the regime initially confronted the Brotherhood before shifting course and entering into a political reconciliation with the movement in 1978. This alliance gave the Brotherhood unprecedented access to the state apparatus and the economy, enabling its cadres and affiliated business networks to consolidate their influence over the levers of power.
One of the most consequential outcomes of that period was the adoption of Islamic sharia laws in 1983. These laws not only reshaped Sudan’s legal and social order but also contributed directly to the resumption of civil war between the north and the south, a conflict that persisted until 2005 and eventually culminated in the secession of what is now South Sudan.
From democratic experiment to authoritarian consolidation
Following the overthrow of Nimeiri’s regime, the Brotherhood re-emerged under the banner of the “Islamic Front,” a broader Islamist coalition it used as a vehicle to reinsert itself into the post-uprising democratic transition. While it participated in the pluralistic political process on the surface, the movement simultaneously prepared to overturn it.
In 1989, the Brotherhood-backed coup led by Omar al-Bashir abruptly ended Sudan’s fragile democratic experiment and inaugurated three decades of authoritarian rule with a pronounced Islamist imprint. During this period, the movement entrenched itself within the army, security services, civil service, and financial system, presiding over a state marked by deep internal divisions, multiple armed conflicts, systematic corruption, and religious and political repression.
The regime’s policies further polarized Sudanese society and weakened state institutions, reinforcing patronage networks aligned with the Brotherhood’s interests. As wars spread in different regions of the country, the human and economic costs mounted, pushing Sudan toward chronic crisis.
Post-Bashir era and continued influence
The popular uprising that toppled Bashir’s regime in 2019 generated widespread demands to dismantle the Islamist system of governance and to ban the Brotherhood from political activity, while holding its leaders accountable for abuses committed under their rule. Transitional authorities took steps to curtail the organization’s formal structures and legal presence.
However, the Brotherhood’s entrenched networks within the “deep state”—particularly within the military leadership and security institutions—allowed it to preserve considerable influence despite formal restrictions. Many Sudanese parties and democratic forces accuse the movement of playing an active role in undermining the civilian-led transition and of backing the military takeover that derailed the process toward democratic governance.
Observers within and outside Sudan argue that the Brotherhood stands firmly behind the continuation of the current war, viewing instability as a means to block any settlement that would marginalize it or subject its leadership to accountability. According to these assessments, the movement opposes both national and international initiatives that call for its exclusion from any future political arrangement, and may resort to armed and clandestine methods if it is definitively shut out of formal power.
Prospects of radicalization and regional impact
Against this backdrop, a formal U.S. designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization would likely have far-reaching consequences for the group’s operations, alliances, and sources of funding, not only in Sudan but also across the region. The move could embolden domestic and regional actors advocating a complete ban on the Brotherhood’s activities and its exclusion from any post-war political framework in Sudan.
At the same time, there are growing concerns that, if isolated and stripped of its remaining formal levers of influence, the movement may double down on military and clandestine options, further opening Sudan’s territory to transnational extremist and terrorist networks. Such a trajectory would deepen the country’s fragmentation and complicate efforts to achieve a durable peace.
The Muslim Brotherhood has already been outlawed in several neighboring Arab and regional states, forcing many of its prominent leaders and ideologues into exile in European countries and in states such as Turkey and Rwanda, where they are able to maintain political, media, and organizational activities. This dispersion has contributed to the evolution of a complex and decentralized network whose future will be directly affected by any shift in the international legal and political treatment of the movement.
In this volatile context, the anticipated American designation stands as both a signal and a test: a signal of a tougher international stance toward the Brotherhood’s transnational structures, and a test of whether such pressure will curb the movement’s destabilizing role in countries like Sudan or instead drive it into more radical and violent forms of engagement.
