US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has urged countries to collaborate against what he called a growing threat from left-wing terrorism.

The Trump administration hosted representatives from more than 60 countries in Washington, where it argued that left-wing political violence was the result of a “single evil rooted in deep resentment toward civilization.”

Officials made no mention of combating far-right threats, and Democrats said Rubio’s focus on left-wing groups was “politically partisan.”

The initiative aligns with the Trump administration’s stated priority of confronting left-wing groups, particularly Antifa, a loosely organized far-left movement.

At Thursday’s session in Washington, DC, Rubio called for a global effort to share intelligence to counter the “transnational” issue of far-left extremism.

The guest list included officials from most European nations, several Latin American countries and India, Indonesia and Singapore, the Washington Post reports.

The Trump administration has already designated Antifa (short for anti-fascist) as a domestic terrorist group.

At the session, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller characterized leftists as “fundamentally motivated by envy, hatred and jealousy.”

Also on Thursday, the State Department announced visa restrictions targeting members of what it calls “far-left terrorists and other aligned groups,” including those who have allegedly engaged in “economic sabotage.”

Washington has already designated four European groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Antifa Ost (based in Germany), the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (Italy), Armed Proletarian Justice (Greece), and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense (Greek).

Eleven Democratic lawmakers wrote to Rubio on Wednesday asking whether his focus on left-wing groups could target legal protests and political opponents.

“We strongly urge the Department to refocus on a serious mission that is by definition apolitical, data-driven and rooted in reality,” said the letter, obtained by Reuters news agency.

The lawmakers suggested that the State Department was “approving the political priorities of extremists within the Administration.”

Research presents a mixed picture of far-left and far-right extremism in the United States.

A 2025 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank, found that left-wing terrorism had surpassed far-right terrorism for the first time in more than 30 years, although it also said incidents from both sides were relatively low.

However, last year the US Department of Justice quietly removed from its website a 2024 internal study that indicated far-right extremists were responsible for the majority of ideologically motivated deaths.