The Administration of Donald Trump has decided to make the fight against 'Antifa' an international priority. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, gathered representatives from 66 countries in Washington this Thursday to promote a joint strategy against what the White House calls the resurgence of “far-left political terrorism”.
The meeting, held at the State Department headquarters under the name of Ministerial Meeting on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism, seeks to strengthen police cooperation, information exchange, and the prosecution of financing channels. Spain participated through two counselors from its Embassy in Washington, one belonging to the political section and the other to the Interior area.
Rubio opened the conference with an ideological speech in which he accused Western institutions of having maintained a "blind spot" for decades regarding left-wing violence. The head of US diplomacy assured that it is a "real and transnational" threat that is going through a new stage of expansion.
Rubio draws a global network of Antifa militants
The Secretary of State argued that anti-fascist militants travel between Europe and the United States to participate in attacks, share propaganda, and access training materials. According to his account, these networks exchange information on targets through encrypted channels, use safe houses, and receive international funding.
Rubio included communists, anarchists, Marxists, anti-imperialists, and anti-capitalists under the same threat. He also defined their ideology as a “poisonous resentment” disguised with the language of equality and justice, and recalled episodes starring the Italian Red Brigades, the German Red Army Faction, the Tupamaros, or Sendero Luminoso.
The presentation mixed historical terrorist organizations with the current Antifa movement, a denomination that groups very different collectives without a common direction. Antifa lacks a unified international structure, a recognizable hierarchy, and a central leadership, although certain groups that present themselves as anti-fascists have committed violent acts.
The Trump Administration has already included four European groups on its list of foreign terrorist organizations, among them Antifa Ost and several anarchist organizations from Italy and Greece. Washington offers rewards of up to ten million dollars for information on their financing, and Rubio has announced that new designations will be made soon.
The data complicates the White House's narrative
Left-wing political violence has increased in the United States in recent years and deserves a response from the authorities. However, available studies offer a much more nuanced picture than that presented by Rubio to his allies.
An analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, concluded that in 2025, left-wing attacks and plots surpassed those of the far-right for the first time in more than three decades. The report itself explains that this variation was also due to a sharp drop in ultra incidents and warns that left-wing violence continues to be less organized and much less lethal.
Over the last decade, attacks classified by CSIS as left-wing political violence caused 13 deaths. Far-right attacks caused 112 and those linked to jihadism, 82. The center calls for combating all forms of terrorism and avoiding disproportionate responses that could fuel further radicalization.
The selection of threats made by the Republican Administration is particularly controversial. Just twelve days before the summit, around 400 masked members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front marched through Washington with Confederate flags and slogans to "take back America."
Trump also granted pardons and commutations to nearly 1,600 people prosecuted for the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, including members of ultra organizations like the Proud Boys. Rubio did not mention that episode or the history of racist, anti-Semitic, or anti-government attacks committed by the American far-right.
A strategy accompanied by aid for groups aligned with MAGA
The conference is part of a broader shift in US security strategy. Washington wants to shift some of the resources dedicated over the last decades to jihadism towards drug trafficking, criminal organizations, and political movements that the White House groups under the label of "violent far-left".
The event was also attended by officials such as the FBI director, Kash Patel; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and National Security Advisor Stephen Miller. The latter called left-wing violence a “cancer” and questioned why some activists invoke civil liberties to protect themselves from state action.
The offensive coincides with a call from the State Department to grant subsidies of between one and three million dollars to European organizations working on national sovereignty, migration, alleged censorship, “civilizational” ties, and the political use of justice. The criteria coincide with much of the international arguments of the ultra MAGA movement.
The fear that the fight against terrorism will reach peaceful protest
US civil rights organizations have warned of the danger of using overly broad definitions. The ACLU believes that Trump's strategy could end up subjecting associations, activists, donors, and social movements that carry out legal and peaceful activities to surveillance and investigation.
Concern increases due to the difficulty of separating ideology, protest, vandalism, and terrorism in certain incidents. The CSIS excludes many attacks against Tesla vehicles or facilities from its data, considering them acts of economic destruction that do not meet its definition of terrorism, while the Trump Administration presents them as part of an organized political campaign.
The United States now wants its allies to help identify militants, share intelligence, block funds, and prosecute organizations on its list. The crusade against Antifa has ceased to be an internal Trump slogan to become one of the new priorities of US diplomacy.
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