Credit: Ted Cruz Senator
In the US, Texas has been at the forefront of condemning the Muslim Brotherhood, notably becoming the first U.S. state to officially designate the group—alongside the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)—as a Foreign Terrorist and Transnational Criminal Organization.
A man of Portuguese origin remains in the collective memory as having been the main supporter of this condemnatory movement. Senator Ted Cruz was the first to introduce legislation to federally designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, citing long-standing allegations of the group's ties to global terrorism and its alleged goals to establish a caliphate and impose Sharia law.
In November 2025, Governor Greg Abbott issued a historic proclamation using state penal and property codes to classify the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations. This unprecedented move immediately prohibited these organizations from buying or acquiring land in Texas and subjected them to asset forfeiture and increased law enforcement scrutiny.
In February 2026, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit to permanently stop the operations of the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR within the state, seeking to prohibit them from owning real estate or soliciting and recruiting members.
The Trump administration followed suit. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described the threat posed by radical Islam as a "civilizational conflict" and an "imminent threat" to the West. He has characterized the fight against groups like ISIS as a "clash of civilizations", as radical Islamists were motivated by an apocalyptic ideology and a fundamental hatred of Western values, framing the struggle in absolute terms where "either they win, or we win".
Following directives from the Trump administration, Rubio announced actions to designate specific regional chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East and Africa as Specially Designated Global Terrorists due to their ties with extremist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
In his February 2026 speech at the Munich Security Conference, he urged the U.S. and European allies to unite against shared threats to protect their shared heritage and values.
