US wants to globalise fight against far-left ‘terrorism’

WASHINGTON - The United States launched a scathing attack on left-wing violence on July 16 at an international conference, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for global cooperation to fight a “new wave of this old evil”.

In opening remarks at a ministerial meeting on “the Resurgence of Political Terrorism,” Rubio said that “far-left terrorism” has become a “blind spot” after the scrutiny on Islamic militant extremism following the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.

“Even today, the very idea that far-left terrorism could be a serious threat is treated as a right-wing fever dream, or worse, as a dangerous fascist conspiracy,” he said.

Citing an increase in leftist attacks in Europe and the United States since 2016, Rubio called for boosting cooperation to combat an ideology he described as “a poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice.”

Leftist extremism, said Rubio - a fierce anti-communist whose parents fled Cuba - draws its inspiration from a “hatred for civilisation itself.”

More than 60 delegations from Europe to Asia joined the event, where US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller also spoke.

“You are here because your political leaders are being attacked and stabbed and shot in your streets,” Rubio told the delegates, “because your businesses have been bombed, because your railways have been sabotaged, because your police officers have been beaten and burned.”

Right-wing terror absent

Rubio and Miller made no mention, however, of right-wing acts of terror, which according to a comprehensive 2025 report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), has been a far larger problem in the United States the past 30 years.

The CSIS report acknowledged that there has been an increase in left-wing terrorist attacks and plots over the past 10 years.

But it said that “such violence has risen from very low levels and remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers.”

The Trump administration has targeted Europe in particular, calling it an “incubator of terrorist threats.”

Rubio gave several examples of violent acts blamed on leftist groups in Europe, including the sabotage of the French rail network for the opening of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris and the death of nationalist activist Quentin Deranque in Lyon in February.

According to a State Department fact sheet, in 2024 there were 21 attacks in the European Union attributed to “far-left and anarchist terrorists” compared to 24 attacks from Islamic militants.

Antifa

The “Antifa” movement - short for “anti-fascist” - has also been targeted by the Trump administration, which designated it a “domestic terrorist organisation” in 2025 after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.

However, experts say it is a nebulous movement of left-wing activists that is more of a political ideology than an organised group.

In the United States, the movement gained traction after Trump’s first election in 2016, and many conservatives blamed riots and protests in the summer of 2020 after the death of George Floyd on anti-fascist protesters.

In his remarks, Miller launched a virulent attack on “leftists,” saying they were spreading a “cancer” in society.

Miller also described antifa protesters as “deformed.”

“Not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal,” he said. “They’re all deformed in some way in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism.”

Critics accuse Trump himself of inciting violence.

On returning to the White House in January 2025, he pardoned more than a thousand of his supporters who had stormed the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021. AFP