The Trump administration will announce a new national counterterrorism strategy that includes a heavy focus on drug cartels operating within the Western Hemisphere and violence said to be caused by individuals associated with left-wing ideologies.
Sebastian Gorka, senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, previewed the document on a call with reporters Wednesday morning.
The new counterterrorism strategy represents “a framework of action and strength driven by the principle that America is our homeland and must be protected,” Gorka said. “This is America First counterterrorism.”
Specifically, the administration identified four key areas of focus as it relates to terrorist threats:
- Hemispheric cartel threats
- Islamist jihadist groups
- Violent, secular political groups with anti-American, pro-gender or anarchist ideologies
- Non-state acquisition and use of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons
Cartels:
The administration’s strategy prioritizes “incapacitating cartel operations until these groups are incapable of bringing their drugs, their members and their traffic victims into the United States,” Gorka said.
“Will continue to find and remove the cartel and gang members who were let into our country under the Biden administration, while using Foreign Terrorist Organization designations to strangle the commercial and logistic sinews of their lethal organizations,” he added
Pressed on whether the administration intends to announce any new FTO designations, specifically around President Donald Trump’s expected meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday, Gorka demurred, though he argued drug imports into the U.S. have killed more Americans than have Islamic extremists, and stressed the administration would prioritize both anti-cartel operations abroad as well as identifying those within the country.
Islamic extremism
The strategy calls for the “targeting and destruction of the top five Islamist jihadi groups that have the intent and capabilities that execute external operations against the United States.” Specific targets named include al Qaeda (and especially its most aggressive sub group, al Qaeda in the Arabian and Peninsula, AQAP); ISIS (with a focus on ISIS-K); and the Muslim Brotherhood (which Gorka described as the “ancestor of all modern jihadist groups”).
Gorka also pointed to Trump’s America First approach by suggesting the U.S. would be shifting from a “burden sharing” approach to a “burden shifting” one, putting greater expectation on foreign allies to defend themselves.
“If you want to be measured as a serious nation, whether it is protecting tankers in the Strait of Hormuz or whether it is working against jihadi threats in the Sahel of Africa, we expect more from you,” Gorka said. “The idea that there is one hyper power in the world, America and it will protect all from every threat is untenable. We reject the concept of a global police officer.”
He noted administration officials would be meeting with counterterrorism partners from other nations later this week to discuss this new framework.
Radical ideologies
In perhaps the greatest departure from previous counterterrorism strategies, Trump administration officials are putting a particular focus on left-wing violence and ideologies, specifically naming “extremist transgender ideologies” and “Antifa” multiple times.
The Trump administration will prioritize “the rapid identification and neutralization of violent, secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-gender or anarchist,” Gorka said. “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.”
Gorka said they would also investigate foreign state sponsors of these groups.
Gorka’s remarks focused almost exclusively on left-wing violence, naming multiple recent examples of shootings said to be inspired by such groups, though he did note: “This is a threat we will take very seriously, whether you are right-wing inspired or left-wing inspired. The point at which you advocate for violence or use violence yourself for political purposes means you are actually undertaking terrorism, and we will not permit that to happen in the United States.”
Pressed about how the administration was defining left-wing violence, he added: “It’s less about the specific label, what they call themselves, because there is a multiplicity of labels. It is what they espouse, whether they are inciting violence against innocent individuals. It’s also about the ideology, whether it's against Western civilization, America, the US Constitution, our friends, our allies, peace in general.”
“My contention [is] that the greatest vulnerability for threat groups, the center of gravity is their ideology,” he added. “We must demoralize. We must degrade and we must delegitimize.”
Importantly, while there’s evidence of radical, violent events being inspired by groups of all ideologies, right and left. But research has shown that, at least in recent U.S. history, most political violence is carried out in the name of right-wing ideologies. An analysis conducted last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, for example, found that over the past decade, right-wing extremists carried out 152 attacks in the United States and killed 112 people, compared with 35 attacks and 13 deaths attributed to left-wing extremists. Jihadist-inspired attacks accounted for 82 deaths over the same period.
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)
Gorka described WMD’s - specifically nuclear weapons - as “the most dangerous terrorist threat,” and said the new strategy had a “special strategic category” for this type of violence.
But he also downplayed the potential threat of nuclear violence from Iran.
“Iran is a pariah state, and for them, we are a relatively hard target,” Gorka said. “That doesn't mean we don't take the plot seriously on what Iran is intending to do, but it is hard for them to do anything of significance.”
