Seven months after the first designations, Washington’s rolling Brotherhood campaign has not rolled
Executive Order 14362 promised a sequenced campaign against Muslim Brotherhood chapters. Since the January listings of the Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian branches, described by the State Department as a first step, no second step has been announced.
President Trump signed Executive Order 14362, “Designation of Certain Muslim Brotherhood Chapters as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” on 24 November 2025; it was published in the Federal Register at Volume 90, Number 227, page 55033, and required a joint State and Treasury report to the President within thirty days, after consultation with the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. On 13 January 2026 the State Department and Treasury designated the Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian chapters, with the Lebanese branch listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and its leader Muhammad Fawzi Taqqosh as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. State framed the action explicitly as a first step under the order. The Files has not independently verified the exact FTO-versus-SDGT split across all three chapters against the SDN list.
Nothing in the week of 17 to 24 August altered that picture on the public record. The two items The Files could place inside the window were both partisan: a Brotherhood statement carried by the Freedom and Justice Gate marking the thirteenth anniversary of the 14 August 2013 Rabaa al-Adawiya and Nahda dispersals, dated 29 Safar 1448 / 13 August 2026, which is the organisation speaking about itself; and an assessment by NewsYemen, an outlet editorially hostile to the Yemeni affiliate Islah, arguing the group is being hollowed out by proscription and internal fracture at once. Meanwhile the legislative route has been left behind: S.2293, H.R.4397 and H.R.3883 all remain pending in the 119th Congress, unneeded because the executive moved first.
Assessment: A pause is not a retreat, but it is information. The January package took the three chapters with the least diplomatic cost — Lebanon, where the branch is small; Jordan, which had already banned the group in April 2025 and insists it was dissolved by law in 2020; and Egypt, where the designation cost Cairo nothing. The next names are harder, and every candidate raises a question about a European ally’s own inaction. Two cautions. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies flagged on 12 August that Washington is moving from chapters to support infrastructure; FDD advocates for designation and is not a neutral tracker. And The Files could not reach the OFAC change log for the window. If a listing landed quietly last week, this framing inverts.