WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday convened representatives from more than 60 countries at the State Department for an unprecedented ministerial meeting on what he described as the “resurgence of political terrorism” driven by violent left-wing extremism.
In opening remarks, Rubio argued that Western counterterrorism strategy has long suffered from a dangerous “blind spot.” For 25 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said, the focus rightly centered on Islamist extremism. That effort succeeded in sharply reducing jihadist plots and deaths in the United States and Europe. But the same institutions, he charged, systematically excused or minimized comparable violence when it came from the political left.
“A bomb planted by a neo-Nazi group was a nefarious and murderous act of evil. It is,” Rubio said. “But a bomb planted by a Marxist revolutionary — well, that’s just merely a tragic excess of idealism.
”He told the gathered officials that left-wing violence had been treated as “sacrosanct — a protected class unto itself.” That era, he declared, must end.
Rubio rooted the current threat in a longer history. Between 1970 and 1980, he noted, 93 percent of terrorist attacks in the West originated from the far left. He recalled the Weather Underground’s bombings of U.S. government buildings, the Red Brigades’ assassination of an Italian prime minister, the Shining Path’s massacres in Peru, and similar campaigns by groups across Latin America and Europe.
Today, he said, the pattern is reemerging. Left-wing terrorist attacks and plots in the United States have risen to levels not seen in decades. Far-left violence in Germany jumped more than 40 percent in the past year. In Greece, more than 80 percent of radical violence is now attributed to far-left and anarchist actors. Rubio cited recent incidents including attacks on immigration officers, the sabotage of Berlin’s power grid, the beating death of a young man in Lyon, France, a school shooting, the killing of a healthcare executive, multiple assassination attempts on a sitting president, and the murder of a prominent conservative activist.
“This is a distinctive and unique evil,” Rubio said. “It has always been driven by a hatred, above all else, a hatred for civilization itself. It is a revolt of the worst against the best, a revolt of the weak and the cowardly against the strong and the good.
”He described contemporary networks, including Antifa militants, as transnational: raising money in one country, communicating in another, training in a third, and striking in a fourth or fifth. These groups, he added, sometimes work alongside hostile foreign states, including Cuban intelligence networks and Iranian proxies.
Under President Donald Trump, Rubio said, the United States has begun to respond. The administration has designated several far-left extremist groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, offered multimillion-dollar rewards for information on their financing, and launched joint law-enforcement workshops with partner nations. More designations are expected, he added.
“You are here because this is real, and it is getting worse, and it can no longer be denied, and it can no longer be ignored,” Rubio told the delegates. “It is time to crush this evil forever.
”White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also addressed the gathering. The ministerial is intended to forge lasting intelligence-sharing, financial-disruption, and law-enforcement partnerships across borders.
Critics have questioned the administration’s emphasis. Some analysts note that absolute numbers of left-wing incidents remain relatively low in long-term U.S. data and that right-wing extremism has historically accounted for a larger share of fatal attacks in recent decades. Others argue the framing risks politicizing counterterrorism. Rubio dismissed such objections in advance, predicting they would appear in coverage of the conference itself.
The meeting marks one of the Trump administration’s most explicit efforts to elevate left-wing political violence as a central national-security priority heading into the midterm election season.
