WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration has made good on its pledge to label three Middle Eastern branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, imposing sanctions on them and their members in a decision that could have implications for U.S. relationships with allies Qatar and Turkey.
The Treasury and State departments announced the actions Tuesday against the Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood, which they said pose a risk to the United States and American interests.
The State Department designated the Lebanese branch a foreign terrorist organization, the most severe of the labels, which makes it a criminal offense to provide material support to the group. The Jordanian and Egyptian branches were listed by Treasury as specially designated global terrorists for providing support to Hamas.
“These designations reflect the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort to thwart Muslim Brotherhood chapters’ violence and destabilization wherever it occurs,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. “The United States will use all available tools to deprive these Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism.”
Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were mandated last year under an executive order signed by Trump to determine the most appropriate way to impose sanctions on the groups, which U.S. officials say engage in or support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm the United States and other regions.
Muslim Brotherhood leaders have said they renounce violence.
Trump's executive order had singled out the chapters in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, noting that a wing of the Lebanese chapter had launched rockets on Israel after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel that set off the war in Gaza. Leaders of the group in Jordan have provided support to Hamas, the order said.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 but was banned in that country in 2013. Jordan announced a sweeping ban on the Muslim Brotherhood in April.
Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, said some allies of the U.S., including the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, would likely be pleased with the designation.
“For other governments where the brotherhood is tolerated, it would be a thorn in bilateral relations,” including in Qatar and Turkey, he said.
Brown also said a designation on the chapters may have effects on visa and asylum claims for people entering not just the U.S. but also Western European countries and Canada.
“I think this would give immigration officials a stronger basis for suspicion, and it might make courts less likely to question any kind of official action against Brotherhood members who are seeking to stay in this country, seeking political asylum,” he said.
Trump, a Republican, weighed whether to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization in 2019 during his first term in office. Some prominent Trump supporters, including right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, have pushed his administration to take aggressive action against the group.
Two Republican-led state governments — Florida and Texas — designated the group as a terrorist organization this year.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — An independent counsel on Tuesday demanded a death sentence for former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on rebellion charges in connection with his short-lived imposition of martial law in December 2024.
Removed from office last April, Yoon faces eight trials over various criminal charges related to his martial law debacle and other scandals related to his time in office. Charges that he directed a rebellion are the most significant ones.
Independent counsel Cho Eun-suk’s team requested the Seoul Central District Court to sentence Yoon to death, according to the court.
The Seoul court is expected to deliver a verdict on Yoon in February. Experts say the court likely will sentence him to life in prison. South Korea hasn't executed anyone since 1997.
Yoon was scheduled to make remarks at Tuesday's hearing. He has maintained that his decree was a desperate yet peaceful attempt to raise public awareness about what he considered the danger of the liberal opposition Democratic Party, which used its legislative majority to obstruct his agenda. He called the opposition-controlled parliament “a den of criminals” and “anti-state forces.”
Yoon’s decree, the first of its kind in more than 40 years in South Korea, brought armed troops into Seoul streets to encircle the assembly and enter election offices. That evoked traumatic memories of dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s, when military-backed rulers used martial law and other emergency decrees to station soldiers and armored vehicles in public places to suppress pro-democracy protests.
On the night of Yoon's martial law declaration, thousands of people rushed to the National Assembly to object to the decree and demand his resignation in dramatic scenes. Enough lawmakers, including even those in Yoon’s ruling party, managed to enter an assembly hall to vote down the decree.
Observers described Yoon’s action as political suicide. Parliament impeached him and sent the case to the Constitutional Court, which ruled to dismiss him as president.
It was a spectacular downfall for Yoon, a former star prosecutor who won South Korea’s presidency in 2022, a year after entering politics.
Lee Jae Myung, a former Democratic Party leader who led Yoon's impeachment bid, became president by winning a snap election last June. After taking office, Lee appointed three independent counsels to delve into allegations involving Yoon, his wife and associates.
There had been speculation that Yoon resorted to martial law to protect his wife, Kim Keon Hee, from potential corruption investigations. But in wrapping up a six-month investigation last month, independent counsel Cho’s team concluded that Yoon plotted for over a year to impose martial law to eliminate his political rivals and monopolize power.
Yoon’s decree and ensuing power vacuum plunged South Korea into political turmoil, halted the country’s high-level diplomacy and rattled its financial markets.
Yoon’s earlier vows to fight attempts to impeach and arrest him deepened the country’s political divide. In January last year, he became the country’s first sitting president to be detained.
Supporters of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold signs outside of Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
FILE - Then South Korea's ousted former President Yoon Suk Yeol who is facing charges of orchestrating a rebellion when he declared martial law on Dec. 3, arrives to attend his trial at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, Pool, File)
