What happens if Antifa is labeled a foreign terrorist organization

Consider This from NPR

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🗓️ 27 October 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

In a public roundtable, President Trump asked his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to apply the designation to Antifa.

NPR's Ryan Lucas reports that it could have enormous consequences, including making it illegal to provide something as meager as a bottle of water to what the Trump administration deems to be Antifa.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Since he took office, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made heavy use of three very powerful words, foreign terrorist organization.
0:09.0	Today we have designated as terrorist organizations.
0:11.6	He outlined some of the tools that this designation unlocks at a press conference in Ecuador last month, where he announced that he was adding two drug cartels to the list he's keeping.
0:20.5	One is Los Lobos and the other is Los Choneros.
0:23.8	We've designated him as foreign terrorist organizations, and that brings with it all sorts of options for the United States.
0:30.1	A big one, finances.
0:31.9	It means that we can now, number one, go after the money, the properties, the banking system of anyone who's related to these
0:40.3	groups. Another, it opens up intelligence sharing with foreign governments.
0:44.2	Which is very valuable when you're trying to wage war against these vicious animals,
0:48.7	these terrorists.
0:50.3	So far, Rubio has designated 19 new foreign terrorist organizations.
0:55.0	Compare that to four during the entire Biden administration.
0:58.7	And a lot of them have been drug cartels.
1:01.5	This is a dramatic shift from how previous administrations use this designation.
1:06.4	Unlike, say, al-Qaeda or Hamas, drug cartels are motivated by profit, not politics or ideology.
1:12.8	These are not narco-traffickers. These are narco-terrorists who terrorize the countries they operate in.
1:19.2	Now President Trump is talking about using the foreign terrorist designation against a domestic
1:24.4	movement. He's opened the door to using this powerful tool against Antifa.
1:30.8	Consider this.
1:32.3	A foreign terrorist organization designation for Antifa could have massive consequences for freedom of speech in the U.S.
1:42.3	From NPR, I'm Wana Summers.
1:46.3	This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe.
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