Trump Administration Releases 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy

On May 6, the White House released the Trump administration’s 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy, the first such strategy of President Trump’s second term. The 16-page memo focuses on “three major types of terror groups”: “narcoterrorists and transnational gangs,” “legacy Islamist terrorists,” and “violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and fascists.”

The memo praises Trump for “unleash[ing] the greatest fighting force the world has ever seen,” disparages “the borderless Biden years,” and castigates the “weaponization” of the intelligence community, “which has been mired in old ways of looking at threats, or has been actively weaponized by its leadership as a political tool.” 

The strategy states:

Our counterterrorism operations will be executed apolitically and founded upon reality based threat assessments. Our counterterrorism powers will not be used to target our fellow Americans who simply disagree with us. We will not permit the weaponization of America’s unparalleled CT capabilities for partisan purposes and in contravention of every American’s God-given rights.

Later, the document addresses the administration’s plan to prioritize national security resources to monitor and counter domestic threats:

America’s new U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy is driven by the principle that America is our homeland. Americans should be safe to live their lives without the fear of terror attacks, the threat of Jihadists, the flooding of our communities with deadly drugs at the hands of foreign narcoterrorists, or violent left-wing extremists who have adopted radical ideologies antithetical to the principles upon which our Republic was founded. Additionally, we will continue to ensure our CT structures are not weaponized against the American people, as prior administrations allowed.

You can read the 2026 National Counterterrorism Strategy here or below: