Secretary Bessent Delivers Remarks Before the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism

As prepared for delivery.

Good morning. Thank you, Secretary Rubio, for convening this ministerial and for the invitation to be here.

We are here together because the resurgence of political terrorism, transnational in design and far-left in doctrine, is no longer the concern of any one nation.  It demands a response that draws upon the distinct and combined strengths of every government represented here today.

Ours begins where every campaign of terror does: its financial lifeblood.  And at President Trump’s direction, the United States Treasury is bringing the full weight of our authorities to defend the integrity of the U.S. and global financial systems.

More than twenty years ago, in the wake of 9/11, Treasury became the first finance ministry in the world to establish an office dedicated to disrupting the funding networks of terrorist organizations.  Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, referred to as TFI, was created in recognition of the reality that America’s financial system is essential to its national security.  TFI’s mandate to identify, disrupt, and disable illicit foreign funds that threaten our homeland has become one of the Treasury’s defining responsibilities.  And today, we are extending that abiding mission to meet an evolving threat.

The resurgence of organized political terrorism has long occupied a blind spot.  The international community has struggled to identify this danger, much less to defeat it.  But as the threat of terrorism evolves, the institutions and tools that defend against it must adapt.

We once understood terrorism principally as an external menace.  That is no longer the world we inhabit.  Increasingly, we are confronting sophisticated, organized networks that cross borders to incite violence within them.  Meanwhile, old ideological boundaries are now giving way to new operational alliances.  The unified front between international Marxism and the radical Islamic movement need not share the same ultimate vision to share the same immediate enemy of free and self-governing societies.

That convergence should concern every government represented in this room.  These terrorists understand an enduring truth: societies are rarely subverted from afar until they have first been weakened from within.  So as it tears at the social fabric that allows our societies to function, left-wing terrorism is the visible manifestation of a much broader and more insidious effort to undermine the philosophies that built Western civilization and sustain all we hold dear.

Some of these activities are overt: bombings, assassinations, and organized violence in our streets.  Others are quieter campaigns to suppress speech, intimidate political opposition, and sabotage our national institutions.

Of course, whatever form they take, none of these attacks sustain themselves.  Violence requires money, channels through which funding can move, and institutions behind which it can hide. Increasingly, legitimate nonprofit and charitable structures are being exploited as a mechanism to conceal the movement of illicit funds to support political terrorism.

For Treasury, the application of our authorities to combat these networks represents the natural evolution of our mission. Through our Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and IRS-CI we have spent decades developing the world’s most sophisticated financial counterterrorism capabilities.  And we are now mobilizing some of the same tools that we have deployed against terrorists abroad to confront this emerging threat here in the homeland.  Like every form of illicit finance, these networks rely on the global financial system.  It is our mandate to deny terrorist groups access to those channels.

Now, we think of nonprofits and charities as good, altruistic organizations.  Most of them are. We think that they represent the very best of civil society.  Many of them do.

But the very qualities that make these institutions worthy of the public’s trust can also make them appealing to those who endeavor to exploit it.

At President Trump’s direction, Treasury is expanding its efforts to identify organizations that abuse charitable and nonprofit structures as vehicles for illicit finance. 

We are examining where tax-exempt status has been exploited, which charitable entities have become financial conduits for foreign-influence activity, and how those entrusted with stewardship of these organizations have instead enabled violence.  Where the evidence leads, we will not hesitate to follow. And, of course, we will hold these organizations’ officers and directors accountable, just as financial institutions must know theirs clients; they must know their grantees.

That work is well underway.  In the fall, the United States designated four far-left Antifa extremist groups abroad as foreign terrorist organizations, denying them access to the U.S. financial system and depriving them of resources they need to carry out attacks.  Meanwhile, in this Administration alone, OFAC has also sanctioned seventeen sham charities and non-profit organizations for funding Hamas’s terrorist activities and operations.

As Treasury continues to map and disrupt the flow of funding that enables these entities to operate, no terror organization should delude itself into the belief that its financing lies beyond our reach.  No facilitator should assume that anonymity confers impunity.  And no jurisdiction should expect to enable or harbor these activities without consequence.

To be clear, in the fight against domestic terrorism, we must respect the constitutional rights of freedom of speech, association, and assembly of all Americans.  As such, it is important to emphasize that Treasury will act based on suspected unlawful conduct by these terror organizations—not because of their beliefs or ideologies.

At Treasury, this work is mission critical.  But we cannot do it alone.  The threat is transnational. Our response must be no less so.  Indeed, our cooperation must be as disciplined as the networks we seek to dismantle.

The global financial system is one of the great achievements of the modern world.  And we must never allow it to become a sanctuary for those who seek to subvert it.

So, on behalf of the United States Treasury, let there be no uncertainty about the work before us and the resolve with which we will undertake it.

We will identify illicit funding, however artfully it is concealed.  We will dismantle the networks that sustain political terrorism, however respectable their fronts.  We will pursue those who enable political violence, however distant their jurisdictions.  And we will deepen our collaboration with every nation represented in this room, for as long as this work requires.

That is our commitment. We ask that you make it yours, too.

Secretary Rubio, thank you again for convening us here this morning.  Let us work together to translate the spirit of this ministerial into a commitment that endures well beyond it.  And let us deny our adversaries the one thing on which they count most: that those of us assembled in this room will grow weary in our cooperation before they do.  

Thank you.

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