Trump signs order to designate nations that hold Americans as sponsors
of wrongful detention
[September 06, 2025]
By MICHELLE L. PRICE
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on
Friday that would let the U.S. designate nations as state sponsors of
wrongful detention, using the threat of associated sanctions to deter
Americans from being detained abroad or taken hostage.
The designation, similar to the state sponsors of terrorism designation
that the U.S. already imposes on some nations, will allow the State
Department to target countries falling under the label with penalties
such as economic restrictions, restrictions on visas for those involved
and travel restrictions for Americans to those countries.
“Like the State Sponsor of Terrorism determination, no nation should
want to end up on this list,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a
statement.
It’s aimed at making it easier to impose penalties on nations that block
or restrain Americans, and impose a major penalty on countries that
don’t release those U.S. nationals.
“With this EO you are signing today, you are drawing a line in the sand
that U.S. citizens will not be used a bargaining chips,” Sebastian Gorka,
senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council,
told Trump as he signed the order at the White House on Friday
afternoon.
The designation is designed for Rubio to be able to lift the penalties
if a nation changes its practices.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the U.S. might begin applying the new
label and to which countries, but two senior administration officials
who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the order being signed
cited China, Afghanistan, Iran and Russia as nations that could
potentially face penalties under the new designation.
The order allows the designation to also be applied to groups that
control territory even if they are not recognized governments.
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President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House,
Friday, Sept. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Global Reach, a nonprofit organization that had advocated for the
return of wrongfully detained Americans, praised the executive
order.
“This designation is something that will put real teeth behind the
US government’s efforts to bring home detained Americans and deter
offending nations from engaging in ‘hostage diplomacy.’ The Trump
Administration is taking action and that is showing results. The
previous administration returned around 75 people in four years. The
Trump Administration is only 228 days into their four-year term and
has already brought home 72,” said Global Reach CEO Mickey Bergman.
Trump has made bringing home Americans jailed abroad a focus in his
second term.
“We’ve gotten a lot of people out and we’ll continue,” Trump said
Friday.
In July, his government organized a three-nation swap, securing the
release of 10 jailed U.S. citizens and permanent residents from
Venezuela in exchange for getting home migrants deported by the
United States to El Salvador.
Seven other Americans determined to be wrongfully detained in
Venezuela were returned this year.
A Russian-American woman who was convicted on treason charges for
making a $52 donation to a charity aiding Ukraine was freed by
Moscow in April as part of a prisoner swap. A similar swap in
February freed an American teacher detained in Russia on drug
charges.
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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