Over the past decade, the shadowy Antifa has risen to prominence as arguably the most high-profile left-wing activist and terrorist network in the U.S. From rowdy, confrontational protests during the 2016 election cycle to overt violence during the riots of 2020 to explicitly targeting and assaulting federal law enforcement officers over the course of 2025, Antifa cells have been involved in nearly all examples of left-wing violence since 2015.

Accordingly, President Donald Trump declared Antifa a domestic terrorist group late last month. “Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law,” the president wrote in an executive order. “It uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide to accomplish these goals.”

“Because of the aforementioned pattern of political violence designed to suppress lawful political activity and obstruct the rule of law, I hereby designate Antifa as a ‘domestic terrorist organization,’” the president announced. “Antifa recruits, trains, and radicalizes young Americans to engage in this violence and suppression of political activity, then employs elaborate means and mechanisms to shield the identities of its operatives, conceal its funding sources and operations in an effort to frustrate law enforcement, and recruit additional members,” he continued. “Individuals associated with and acting on behalf of Antifa further coordinate with other organizations and entities for the purpose of spreading, fomenting, and advancing political violence and suppressing lawful political speech.”

Now, the president is preparing to classify Antifa as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), an official State Department label allowing federal agencies to enact and enforce sanctions against hostile entities, their affiliates, and their funding sources. The president made the announcement at a roundtable with reporters on Wednesday. “It should be clear to all Americans that we have a very serious left-wing terror threat in our country, radicals associated with the domestic terror group Antifa that you’ve heard a lot about lately, and I’ve heard a lot about them for 10 years,” he said. “The epidemic of left-wing violence and Antifa-inspired terror has been escalating for nearly a decade.”

“Under the Trump administration, we’re going after Antifa criminals, and all who fund and support their campaigns are in serious trouble. And we have a lot of records already, a lot of surprises, a lot of bad surprises, it’s people that you would never think,” the president shared, referring to Antifa’s mysterious funding sources. He cited Antifa-affiliated agitators’ signs and posters, face masks and gas masks, and a host of other resources used by the radicals to highlight the left-wing terror cells’ broad funding sources. “These are agitators, anarchists, and they’re paid. And you’ll find that out, you’ll be finding it out very soon. You should see what we have on these people. These are bad people. These are people [who] want to destroy our country,” the president asserted. “They have been very threatening to people. But we’re going to be very threatening to them, far more threatening to them than they ever were with us, and that includes the people that fund them.”

Numerous conservative and independent reporters who have been targeted or victimized by Antifa activists were present at the event and spoke of their experiences and their research into Antifa’s organization, especially its funding. Seamus Bruner, director of research at the Government Accountability Institute, laid emphasis on Antifa’s foreign funding. “We follow the money, and we followed it to the top of what we call the protest industrial complex, Riot Inc.,” Bruner quipped. “We have identified dozens of radical organizations, not just the decentralized antifa organizations, but dozens of radical organizations that have received more than $100 million from the Riot Inc. investors,” he reported. “I think the most shocking thing is that we have found that more than $100 million in U.S. taxpayer funding has poured into these funding networks, including at least $4 million to these very groups themselves, not just Antifa types.”

Antifa is not a centralized organization but rather a decentralized, largely localized network of Antifa “cells” operating under the same ideology and employing similar tactics, making tracking Antifa’s funding difficult. What further complicates the matter is the nebulous, ambiguous relationship between individual Antifa cells and more mainstream political activist and protest groups that benefit from “dark money” funding. However, researchers have been able to identify links between foreign investors and Antifa cells. According to the Capital Research Center, Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Foundations have funneled over $80 million since 2016 into left-wing extremist groups, including those with ties to Antifa cells.

Another Antifa funding source is ex-Microsoft executive Neville Roy Singham, who fled the U.S. and is now based in China, where he has strong links and financial ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and reportedly engages in generating CCP propaganda. Singham has distributed at least $100 million to various U.S.-based protest groups, including those linked to Antifa. Swiss pharmaceutical billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has also been linked to funding Antifa affiliates, according to Bruner. Other “Riot Inc.” investors allegedly covertly funding Antifa activism include the Democrat-aligned Arabella Advisors Network, the progressive grant-maker Tides Foundation, and foreign funding sources, such as Antifa International.

“Like any corporation, rioting has many divisions. It doesn’t just have the Antifa boots-on-the-ground division, it has PR divisions, it has marketing divisions, it has a very well-funded legal division to get these boots-on-the-ground back on the streets as quickly as possible,” Bruner told the president. “This money helps fund the decentralized crowdfunding platforms,” he added, referring to reportedly foreign-influenced crowdfunding networks that provide Antifa members and affiliates with gear and materials for riots and coverage for bail and legal fees. “Just because they don’t have LLCs or EIN numbers doesn’t mean they can’t get paid. Some of these crowdfunding platforms are funded by this network that we call Riot Inc.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Bruner explained, “Antifa isn’t some spontaneous grassroots movement, it’s a coordinated network with funding streams that trace back to powerful interests, both foreign and domestic.” He continued, “Our research has shown that many of the same nonprofit and dark money structures that bankroll left-wing protest movements in the U.S. also support Antifa-aligned groups abroad. Money flows through cutouts: so-called ‘anti-fascist’ groups in Europe, donor-advised funds in the U.S., and even crowdfunding networks designed to obscure donors.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi shared that the president’s “all-of-government” effort to dismantle Antifa cells includes targeting funding. “They’re smart, but they’re not smart enough,” she said. “That’s why we’re all working with Treasury, with all these different departments, to find the criminal conspiracy,” she added. “Under your leadership, President Trump, we’re deploying the full might of the federal law enforcement to crack down on Antifa and other domestic terrorist organizations.” Bondi noted that the Antifa crackdown is being spearheaded by White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, the architect of much of the president’s homeland security policy and a vocal advocate of using stringent tactics to eliminate left-wing terror threats.

Following discussion of Antifa’s dark money and foreign funding sources, the president suggested officially labeling Antifa an FTO. “Would you like to see it done? You think it would help?” he asked the assembled conservative reporters. “I’d be glad to do it. I think it’s the kind of thing I’d like to do. Does everybody agree? If you agree, I agree. Let’s get it done,” the president said. He turned to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and added, “Let’s get it done. Marco, we’ll take care of it.”

Under U.S. law, domestic terrorist organizations are often prosecuted for specific crimes, such as racketeering (under the Racketeering and Corruption Organizations or RICO Act), firearms violations, or property destruction, but the specific charges will vary. FTOs, however, can be prosecuted as terrorists, and those providing “material support or resources” to FTOs can face severe penalties, including life imprisonment, under 18 U.S.C. § 2339B. Bruner told TWS, “If the Trump administration moves to treat Antifa as a foreign terrorist organization, that designation could finally bring the financial forensics tools needed to expose these global pipelines. It’s not just about masked rioters in Portland — it’s about international networks and foreign interests funding domestic chaos.”