MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Trump wants to designate Antifa a “major terrorist organization”

Trump still needs to find out the legal way to go about it, since Antifa is not a foreign organization

US President Donald Trump announced on social media that he intends to designate the anti-fascist movement known as Antifa as a “major terrorist organization.” The initiative follows the recent murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Antifa is a highly decentralized network of activists, not a singular, organized group. It is unclear what legal mechanism the Trump administration would use to carry out this designation, as federal law provides a process for labeling foreign terrorist organizations but not domestic ones.

Trump has previously expressed a desire to designate Antifa as a terrorist group, particularly during the 2020 protests. In his social media post, he also stated that he would recommend investigating those who fund the movement.

The announcement has been met with praise from some Republican lawmakers, while legal experts have noted the significant challenges in applying such a designation to a decentralized domestic entity.

Antifa is a loosely organized network uniting activists who identify as anarchists, anti-capitalists, or communists, operating without a clear leadership structure. Trump called it “a dangerous and sick radical left-wing disaster.” He has repeatedly accused this network of inciting violence, including the riots following the death of George Floyd in 2020 during his first term. Since Kirk's murder on Sept. 10 in Utah, Trump has blamed the “radical left” for the political violence in his country. ”Antifa is terrible,” he added.

Several employees of companies and universities in the United States have been fired or sanctioned for comments deemed inappropriate about Kirk's assassination.