In the presidential foreword to the newly released U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy 2026, President Trump repeated his campaign slogan “Peace Through Strength” and quoted himself.
Trump wrote: “As I said after our first successful counterterrorism mission, just days after I was sworn back in office — if you hurt Americans, or are planning to hurt Americans, ‘We Will Find You and We Will Kill You.’”
Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism National Security Council, voiced his excitement about the 16-page document, and added: “America is back in the business of Counterterrorism.”
“We Will Find You and
We Will Kill You.”The closing words of President @realDonaldTrump’s new U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy released today.
America is back in the business of Counterterrorism.
Find out just how much: https://t.co/vc0gMgvucb @WhiteHouse pic.twitter.com/Gk4rayd2eu
— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) May 7, 2026
According to the strategy, the administration sees three major types of terror groups: 1. narcoterrorists and transnational gangs; 2. legacy Islamist terrorists; 3. “violent left-wing extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists.” (There is no mention of violent right-wing extremists.)
Under the document’s ‘Our CT Priorities’ chapter, it reads: “In addition to cartels and Islamist terror groups, our national CT activities will also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist. We will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa, and use law enforcement tools to cripple them operationally before they can maim or kill the innocent. We will do the same with the state sponsors of such groups and those governments undertaking lethal plots on U.S. soil or against Americans anywhere.”
U.S. Congresswoman Valerie Foushee (D-NC) responded to the strategy on social media: “The White House’s public release of its Counterterrorism Strategy is just a plan on how they’re going to attack people on the left. This is why we cannot reauthorize FISA without warrant requirements and must fight back against the establishment of an NSPM-7 mission center by this Administration. ‘Anti-Fascist’ for example, is not a real terrorism threat in the United States. This is completely corrupt and we must hamstring this Administration’s surveillance overreach.”
National security journalist Ken Klippenstein responded to the document: “In all my years covering this stuff, I have NEVER seen Americans so explicitly labeled terrorists like they are in the newly released national counterterrorism strategy.”
In all my years covering this stuff, I have NEVER seen Americans so explicitly labeled terrorists like they are in the newly released national counterterrorism strategy
https://t.co/OBCH8CB5bS pic.twitter.com/K1Y5Q9IdgT
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) May 6, 2026
Middle East Institute fellow Guled Ahmed wrote: “Sebastian Gorka built an entire media career demanding absolute precision in labeling terrorists, yet his own CT strategy refers to the FTO-designated Houthis merely as ‘non-state actors.’ For a counterterrorism strategist, that is analytically sloppy and politically selective language.”
Former Defense Department civil servant Ryan Evans replied: “This is an extraordinarily strange document.” Political scientist and national security studies scholar Dr. Colin Clarke agreed with Evans and replied, “Indeed.”