I didn't receive an invitation and most of you probably didn't either, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invited the foreign ministers and other senior officials from over 60 countries to Washington, D.C. next week for a summit. The goal? To combat the "resurgence of transnational far-left terrorism," according to Washington Post reporters who say they saw documents related to the matter.
The documents make it "clear that the focus is on 'far-left terrorists,' who, the note says, are 'increasingly turning to organized, deadly violence to advance their political objectives.'"
As the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reports, "In recent years, the United States has seen an increase in the number of left-wing terrorism attacks and plots." In 2025, far-left terrorist attacks outnumbered those from the far-right. Here's more:
More contentious politics in the United States and the expansion of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement appear to have reenergized violent left-wing extremists. The left-wing movement as a whole has not returned to its violent heights of the 1960s and 1970s, but the number of terrorist incidents involving left-wing extremists so far this year puts 2025 on pace to be the left’s most violent year in more than three decades. Moreover, 2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing attacks outnumber those from the far right.
Unlike the highly structured far-left groups of the past, modern far-left and anarchist extremism relies heavily on decentralized, cross-border networking that is often organized online. Both U.S. and European intelligence agencies have pointed to growing coordination between decentralized Antifa and Antifa-like networks and European autonomous groups, especially surrounding major global events. This often leads to riots, arson, attacks on law enforcement, attacks on infrastructure and symbols of capitalism, and destruction of public and private property.
News of the summit comes after the Trump administration released its counterterrorism strategy in May of this year. While the strategy prioritizes hemispheric threats, like cartels, gangs, and other designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations that operate in the Americas, as well as Islamic terrorist groups, our national counterterrorism activities will also "prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist. 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. We will do the same with the state sponsors of such groups and those governments undertaking lethal plots on U.S. soil or against Americans anywhere."
But it sounds like we're not stopping here at home. This ministerial Rubio is hosting will help strengthen cooperation in intelligence-sharing and law enforcement between nations that want to eradicate crime. The countries included in the invitations were most of Europe, some of Asia, and many nations from the Western Hemisphere.
Of course, as with anything the Trump administration does, there is some blowback. According to the Washington Post, some European officials are questioning why they were even invited, as they don't see left-wing terrorism as a threat to their countries. Domestically, there is some concern that expanding counterterrorism activities against these groups could create a slippery slope for dealing with political activists, as well as create an opportunity for the next Democrat who becomes president to go after conservatives, even though the Trump administration's strategy specifically states, "our counterterrorism powers will not be used to target our fellow Americans who simply disagree with us."
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said that far-left terrorism is “an old threat re-emerging with strong transnational links and new convergences," according to the Post. He added, "Because this threat has not been adequately addressed in the past, each engagement, designation, or security assistance program creates a compounding effect supporting countermeasures at home and abroad."
Now, Trump and Rubio are attempting to adequately address it.
Does this sound ambitions? Yes. Is it necessary? Also, yes. It's about time someone treats left-wing extremism and chaos as the transnational threat that it is. And if Rubio and Donald Trump's Shield of the Americas summit in March was any indicator, this won't be just some boring diplomatic meeting that's all talk and no action. We've seen the Shield in action several times in just a few short months.
It will be interesting to see exactly who shows up to this summit next week.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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