WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said he would designate “Antifa” — a shorthand term for “anti-fascist” used to describe diffuse far-left groups — as “a major terrorist organisation,” a move he threatened in his first term.
For years Trump has blamed Antifa for various wrongs, from violence against police to being behind the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021 that aimed to block Joe Biden’s presidential election win.
“I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social, calling Antifa “A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER.”
Antifa has no head or national organisation and seemed to be made up of “independent, radical, like-minded groups and individuals,” a Congressional Research Service analysis found in 2020.
The White House did not immediately offer details on how the label could be applied.
While federal law enforcement includes combating domestic terrorism under its purview, the United States does not have a list of designated “domestic terrorist organisations.” Trump threatened the move on Monday after senior White House official Stephen Miller vowed the administration would dismantle an alleged “vast domestic terror movement” that he linked to the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Ideology, not a movement
Critics of the Republican president warn such a move could be used as a pretext to quash dissent and target political rivals.
While Kirk was a vocal conservative, the United States has seen violence targeting members of both political parties in recent years, amid a sharp rise in polarisation and easy access to firearms.
Antifa — whose name has roots in socialist groups in 1930s Germany that opposed Hitler — has a track record of confronting right-wing groups and engaging in civil disobedience.
Its members, often dressed entirely in black, protest against racism, far-right values and what they consider fascism, and say violent tactics are sometimes justified as self-defence.
During Trump’s first inauguration in January 2017 scores of black-clad, mask-wearing Antifa and other protestors smashed windows and burned a car in Washington. Antifa was also involved in counter-protests to racist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia later that year.
In June 2020, Trump said he would formally designate Antifa as “terrorists” on the same level as Al Qaeda and the militant Islamic State group.
But FBI director Chris Wray responded in a Congressional hearing that Antifa was “a movement or an ideology” as opposed to a group. Antifa is not among the 95 “designated foreign terrorist organisations” listed on the State Department website on Wednesday.
Critics say that Trump is using Kirk’s assassination as a pretext to crack down on political opponents. Trump initially floated the idea of such a designation for antifa in 2020 amid violent nationwide protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
