Counter-terrorism Implications of a Second Trump Presidency

With the recent US presidential election ushering Donald J. Trump back into the White House as the 47th President of the United States, there has been much speculation on what foreign policy could look like over the course of his second stint in office. While it remains difficult to predict exactly how Trump’s tenure will compare to his first, the period of 2017-2021 does offer some clues, taken along with his most recent public pronouncements.  

Rather than attempt to forecast the contours of a Trump Doctrine 2.0, this analysis takes a more modest objective as its goal: to assess how the Trump team will shape its approach to counter-terrorism, both at home and abroad.  

Terror Threat Landscape Heading into 2025 

The terrorist threat landscape looks much different heading into 2025 than it did back in 2017, when Trump first assumed office. When Trump took over from President Barack Obama, the Islamic State (ISIS) was arguably at its apex, controlling large swaths of territory and launching external operations in the West with impunity. To Trump’s credit, his strategy of taking the fight directly to ISIS was successful. Under his presidency, the US military and its coalition partners helped destroy ISIS’s physical caliphate, with the Syrian town of Baghouz falling in the spring of 2019. In October of that year, US special forces located and killed Islamic State emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. 

When Trump takes office in early January 2025, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, though attenuated, is still active. US Central Command confirmed in late October that it launched airstrikes against a number of ISIS targets in Syria, killing dozens of ISIS operatives and demonstrating that the group remains potent. ISIS propaganda continues to radicalise violent extremists throughout the globe, including in the West. There are a range of emerging technologies that could exacerbate the problem, especially if ISIS or other terrorist groups leverage artificial intelligence to augment their existing capabilities.  

There is also the issue of remaining foreign fighters and their families that continue to languish in camps in northeastern Syria. In an effort to close the chapter on Syria altogether, Trump could seek to accelerate or force the repatriation of thousands of foreigners currently in places like al-Hol and al-Roj, a troubling prospect for many of the countries where these foreign nationals would be returned to. If this issue continues to be ignored at a policy level, it is only a matter of time before ISIS militants attempt another prison break, as they did in Hasakah in 2022, reportedly freeing hundreds of ISIS prisoners.  

During his first term in office, after a call with Turkish leader Tayyip Recep Erdogan, Trump drew down the US troop presence in Syria, allowing Erdogan to launch an offensive against the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish group that had been one of Washington’s most reliable allies in the fight against ISIS. That move prompted his then Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, to resign. A similar move to draw down or altogether withdraw US troops from Syria would negatively impact several missions, from the counter-ISIS fight to the US imperative to curb Iranian influence in Syria.  

The US military is also scheduled to begin drawing down from Iraq, where 2,500 troops remain to combat ISIS. As part of an agreement between Iraq and the US, the remaining troops will withdraw in two phases over the course of the next two years, departing fully in 2026, although some troops will remain in Iraq’s Kurdistan region to help support cross-border operations in Syria. The withdrawal, as it did in Afghanistan, could breathe new life into ISIS in Iraq, allowing the militants to regroup in Sunni-dominant parts of the country.  

When President-elect Trump does not believe the United States is getting the best possible return on investment for resources allocated—whether in terms of funding, training and equipment, or the deployment of American military forces—he has demonstrated a willingness to disrupt the status quo, despite going against the advice of US military leadership or in some cases, without even consulting his national security team. Further surprises could be imminent in Trump’s second tour as Commander-in-Chief.  

ISIS-K and Other Transnational Threats 

Of all the looming threats facing the United States, the most relentless is the ISIS branch in Afghanistan, Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). That group launched successful attacks in Iran in early January of this year and another in March in Moscow. Several plots targeting European countries were foiled, including one in Vienna over the summer that sought to attack a Taylor Swift concert. ISIS-K has repeatedly threatened to attack global sporting events, including this past summer’s UEFA Champions League matches in London, Madrid, and Paris. ISIS-K’s continued focus on external operations should be among the Trump administration’s top counter-terrorism priorities upon taking office.  

Yet ISIS-K is far from the only global terrorist threat that the incoming Trump administration will need to confront. Other transnational threats continue to metastasize. Two al-Qaeda affiliates—al-Shabaab in Somalia and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen—are reportedly cooperating with the Houthi movement in Yemen. Iran has long supported the Houthis, and it seems that now Russia is assisting the rebels as well, recently supplying the Houthis with targeting data so they could launch attacks against commercial shipping.  

Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) operates throughout the Sahel, fighting against, and at times cooperating with, Islamic State franchises that stretch from coastal West Africa to the Lake Chad Basin. A series of coups in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, along with a U.S. and French drawdown of troops and the deployment of the Russian mercenary outfit the Wagner Group (rebranded as the Africa Corps), have further destabilised the region. The Tongo Tongo ambush in Niger in 2017, during Trump’s first term, could shape his outlook on whether or not to get involved in the Sahel.   

While much of the Global War on Terrorism, which Trump’s term oversaw the end of, focused on the threat posed by Sunni jihadists affiliated with al-Qaeda and Islamic State, his second term will decidedly be forced to grapple with the threat of Shia extremism and terrorism, represented by Iran’s so-called ‘Axis of Resistance,’ which includes Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis, and various militia groups across Iraq and Syria. Israel has seriously damaged both Hamas and Hezbollah, but few expect that these groups will be permanently defeated. They are likely to remain stubborn threats, continuing as insurgencies, as Iran works to rebuild them. 

Accordingly, state-sponsored terrorism has returned with a vengeance, given Iran’s role in funding, training, and equipping the Axis groups (as well as Sunni groups like Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad). A more confrontational posture vis-à-vis Iran could result in Hezbollah or another member of Iran’s proxy network targeting US interests around the world, including embassies in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere. Russia, too, is a major challenge. While not a formal state sponsor of terrorism (at least not listed as such by the United States), Moscow has been engaging in acts of terrorism in the West for years, poisoning or assassinating dissidents on European soil with impunity. More recently, the Kremlin was behind bombs placed on several DHL planes. 

The aftermath of the deadly Hamas terror attacks of 7 October 2023 and Israel’s ongoing military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon also raise the risk of terror attacks in the West. Accordingly, there has been a massive spike in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Counter-terrorism agencies, law enforcement, and intelligence services are also closely tracking the radicalising nature that an unending stream of images of dead Palestinian children is having on individuals around the world, including in the West. The reverberation of 7 October and Israel’s ongoing response has spilled over borders, evidenced by recent clashes in Amsterdam. The globalisation of conflict will likely accelerate with the emergence and advancement of information and communication technologies, and made even more dangerous by the ease with which disinformation proliferates across social media platforms.  

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), “HAMAS’s 7 October terrorist attack against Israel and the subsequent Israeli government operations in Gaza are driving an increase in media calls from FTOs like ISIS and al-Qa‘ida for lone offender attacks against critical infrastructure, including US government buildings and US-based foreign embassies.” There could also be continued protests against the war in Gaza on US college and university campuses. If there is a spike in far-left violence, it could lead Trump to attempt to designate ANTIFA, a network of anti-fascist activists, as a terrorist group, as he threatened during his first term. Other groups that could come under additional scrutiny are Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Students for Justice for Palestine (SJP).  

Hatred on the Homefront 

Domestically, there is the prospect of potential far-left violence, in opposition to the re-election of Trump. Anti-fascists and anarchists have been outspoken in that they see the threat posed by Trump as existential and could look to organize accordingly and engage in protests and demonstrations. Trump, for his part, has mused openly about deploying the military to deal with protests. If far-left protests are met with physical force, by either law enforcement or far-right counter-protesters, it could lead to a dangerous escalation and contribute to a spiral of violence, fuelling reciprocal radicalisation. In a country as heavily armed as the United States, there is always a possibility for vigilantism, as occurred on parts of the far-left and far-right during the COVID pandemic and protests over the murder of George Floyd.  

In addition to opposition to Trump, other traditionally left-wing causes, including the environment, animal rights, and access to abortion, could also motivate single-issue or special-interest terrorism, as occurred in the past with groups such as Earth Liberation Front (ELF), Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and the more recently announced Jane’s Revenge, a militant pro-abortion rights group that emerged in the aftermath of the leak of a May 2022 US Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, which had been law since 1973. Given the Trump administration’s promise to overhaul the US government bureaucracy, in some cases by slashing budgets and eliminating entire federal agencies and departments, there could be some anti-institutional violence that results, especially if the President-elect and his allies are seen as undermining the democratic order against judges, scientists, journalists, and other aspects of civil society and longstanding American institutions.  

Trump and his allies have talked about a massive US government overhaul that could seek to reduce the size and influence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a decision that would decidedly hamper US counter-terrorism efforts, given the outsized role that the Bureau plays in domestic and international terrorism. The decision to meddle with the Bureau would be odd, considering that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force recently foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump, and there will likely be more similar plots hatched by Iran or another foreign government in the future. The perception that Trump is installing loyalists into leadership positions within the intelligence community will also likely be a blow to morale across various three-letter agencies. If this leads to an exodus of seasoned analysts and operators, it will be a devastating blow to America’s spy services at a time of rising threats posed by both state and non-state actors.  

A second Trump term could reduce, if not altogether eliminate, US government funding available for domestic terrorism or at least right-wing extremism. Cutting off funding for research and analysis on domestic terrorism would be detrimental since the United States still faces a significant challenge in dealing with far-right extremism, having suffered major terrorist attacks in Pittsburgh (October 2018), El Paso (August 2019), Buffalo (May 2022), and Jacksonville (August 2023) to name just a few. There is also growing concern that President-elect Trump’s violent rhetoric and references to the Great Replacement Theory could spark further violence against minority communities in the United States. Far-right extremists might see themselves as helping rid the US of immigrants, who Trump said are “poisoning the blood of our country.” The normalisation of right-wing extremism poses a significant threat to domestic stability in the United States.  

An Uncertain Road Ahead 

Lastly, there are the “unknown unknowns,” or what some might call “black swan events,” which are highly unlikely to occur, but if they do, they will have an outsized global impact. The most serious would be a spectacular terrorist attack on US soil or against US interests overseas. Should that occur, for example, an ISIS-K attack in a major American city using chemical or biological weapons, it is impossible to know how President-elect Trump might react. Though he has a penchant for wanting to drawdown a US military presence overseas, a high-profile, mass casualty terror attack could lead him to deploy the military to re-enter Afghanistan, or whatever territory is inhabited by the group or network that launched the attack. If the attack emanates from a state sponsor of terrorism, including Iran, it could lead to the United States directly attacking the regime in Tehran, leading to an all-out war in the Middle East.  

As counter-terrorism analysts, we should have some humility when it comes to what we think we know and the machinations and decision-making taking place behind the scenes. Trump’s first term in office provides some insight into how he might craft a counter-terrorism strategy in his second term, but it could also look very different. With his cabinet taking shape, and likely to be further populated by China hawks, it is likely that the US focus on great power competition will continue and probably intensify. That signals a status quo, or potentially lessened emphasis on counter-terrorism abroad, relying on, as the Biden administration did, an ‘over-the-horizon’ approach to targeting terrorist groups and their leaders.  

Still, as Trump’s longtime friend, the legendary boxer Mike Tyson, once said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face…”. The Trump administration will need to come into the White House on day one with a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy while preparing to absorb and respond to whatever punches terrorist groups will land during the next four years in office.