The White House released its National Strategy for Counterterrorism on Wednesday, saying it will target drug cartels, foreign terrorist organizations and what it calls “anti-American” political groups. The strategy is aligned with the Trump administration’s approach to combating what it views as domestic terror threats.

Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism, told reporters Wednesday that incapacitating cartel operations would be a priority, in addition to targeting “Islamist,” “left-wing” and “anti-American” ideologies.

The strategy also identifies Iran as “the greatest threat to the United States emanating from the Middle East” and pledges to continue efforts to thwart any threats Iran may pose.

President Donald Trump signed the document Tuesday.

“Our new counterterrorism strategy first prioritizes the neutralization of hemispheric terror threat by incapacitating cartel operations until these groups are incapable of bringing their drugs, their members and their traffic victims into the United States,” Gorka said, adding that domestic efforts to “find and remove” cartel and gang members would continue.

In the wake of multiple apparent assassination attempts against Trump, and particularly after the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, the Trump administration has made an outsized effort to combat what it characterizes as “left-wing extremism.”

“Americans have witnessed the politically motivated killing of Christians and conservatives increase, committed by violent left-wing extremists, including the assassination of my friend Charlie Kirk by a radical who espoused extremist transgender ideology,” Gorka said. “In addition to cartels and Islamist terror groups, our national counterterrorism activities will prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent, secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-gender or anarchist, such as antifa.”

Antifa is a decentralized, anti-fascist political movement. Trump signed an executive order in September that designated antifa as a terrorist organization. Days later, he signed another executive order directing federal law enforcement agencies to dismantle “domestic terrorist organizations” that he alleged are inciting political violence against the right.

After those orders were issued, experts told NOTUS that use of surveillance tools to increase scrutiny of left-wing groups could threaten civil rights and lead to the suppression of viewpoints that differ from the administration’s.

According to Gorka, the strategy document unveiled Wednesday spells a continuation of that approach.

While the inclusion of cartels in a counterterrorism strategy is a departure from norms, Javed Ali, a professor at the University of Michigan and senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, said it signals an evolution of priorities that one would expect from administration to administration.

“Every document is different, because every document is drafted in an administration’s four-year window, and so you have to account for what the threat landscape looks like, and what tools and capabilities are available to the U.S. government to use in counterterrorism,” he said.

On the first day of Trump’s second term, he signed an executive order designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Trump’s counterterrorism team recently underwent a reshuffling after the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, departed over his opposition to the war in Iran. Gorka, who also served in Trump’s first term and rose to prominence as a counterterrorism expert after 9/11, has signaled his interest in the job – though a replacement for Kent has yet to be appointed.

In addition to the reshuffling at the top, Ali said the federal government’s counterterrorism resources are strained after funding cuts last year and the redirection of resources to immigration enforcement.

The FBI, for example, which leads counterterrorism efforts, has had to shift resources in field offices throughout the country.

“They have had to probably make difficult resource allocation choices, because if you’re going to take people off counterterrorism squads, and that’s kind of how it works in the very tactical level, in the field office, and put them on immigration enforcement, well then you’re going to be covering less people — and there’s a risk that comes with that,” Ali said.