On September 5, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office that has the potential to reshape how the United States responds to the wrongful detention of its citizens abroad. The new order creates a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” designation, empowering the U.S. government to impose sweeping penalties on foreign governments and entities that unjustly imprison Americans or support non-state actors who do. Senior administration officials have called this move a “game-changer” in the ongoing effort to bring home wrongfully detained U.S. nationals and deter what they describe as “hostage diplomacy.”
“We’ve gotten a lot of people out and we’ll continue,” President Trump remarked as he signed the order, reflecting a central theme of his second-term foreign policy. The new designation, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is an “unprecedented action to impose new consequences on those who wrongfully detain Americans abroad.” Rubio emphasized the gravity of the measure, stating, “No nation should want to end up on this list. The bottom line: Anyone who uses an American as a bargaining chip will pay the price.” (ABC News)
The executive order hands the Secretary of State significant authority to determine which countries or non-state entities will receive this label. The penalties attached are severe and multifaceted: economic sanctions, visa restrictions, foreign assistance limitations, and even travel restrictions for U.S. passport holders. Rubio’s statement made clear that “actors designated as State Sponsors of Wrongful Detention may face severe penalties including economic sanctions, visa restrictions, foreign assistance restrictions, and travel restrictions for U.S. passport holders.” (State Department statement)
Notably, the scope of the order is broad. It doesn’t just target internationally recognized governments; it also applies to groups that control significant territory, even if they aren’t officially recognized—think of the Taliban in Afghanistan. “It’s a widening of the aperture against whom we can use those tools. You don’t have to be funding Hamas, Hezbollah or al-Qaeda, you can simply be trying to exploit our citizens wrongfully,” a senior administration official explained. (CNN)
Officials have likened this new measure to the existing “State Sponsor of Terrorism” designation, which has long been a powerful tool in U.S. foreign policy. The idea is to create a similarly high-stakes deterrent for foreign governments and groups considering the wrongful detention of Americans. “For those countries or those state actors that hold Americans, there’s going to be a massive cost to them,” said one official involved in the rollout. (ABC News)
The administration has not yet named which countries will be the first to receive the new designation. However, officials have pointed to a familiar list of nations with a history of detaining Americans: Iran, China, Russia, Venezuela, and Afghanistan. The State Department’s travel advisories already warn Americans—especially dual nationals—about the risks of traveling to places like Iran, where wrongful detentions and hostage-taking have become tragically routine. “Americans, including Iranian-Americans and other dual nationals, have been wrongfully detained, taken hostage by the Iranian government for months, and years,” the department warned in a recent advisory. (State Department’s Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs)
The timing of the executive order is no accident. In the wake of a 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025, Iranian authorities have escalated their crackdown on perceived enemies, detaining over 2,000 people, including several Europeans now facing espionage charges that carry the death penalty. The State Department specifically cited these developments as a reason for its heightened warnings and for the urgent need for stronger deterrence. (USA Beh Farsi, State Department Persian X account)
Advocacy groups and families of Americans held overseas have welcomed the move. The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, named after the journalist murdered in ISIS captivity, called the executive order “a critical step forward in confronting a deeply entrenched practice that violates international norms and endangers innocent lives.” The organization urged governments currently holding Americans to “immediately and unconditionally release all American captives.” (CNN)
The family of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent abducted in Iran in 2007, expressed gratitude for the new policy, stating, “Every government guilty of this barbaric conduct must understand that they will be held accountable and will pay a price backed by the full force of the United States government.” (CNN)
Global Reach, a nonprofit that advocates for Americans wrongfully detained overseas, also praised the order. “This designation is something that will put real teeth behind the U.S. 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,” said CEO Mickey Bergman. He pointed out that in just 228 days of Trump’s second term, 72 Americans have been brought home—a pace nearly matching the total achieved in four years by the previous administration. (Los Angeles Times)
The administration’s efforts have already yielded some high-profile successes. In July 2025, the U.S. organized a three-nation swap, securing the release of ten jailed U.S. citizens and permanent residents from Venezuela in exchange for the return of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador. Seven other Americans determined to be wrongfully detained in Venezuela were returned this year. Earlier in 2025, a Russian American woman convicted on treason charges for making a donation to a Ukrainian charity was freed by Moscow as part of a prisoner swap, and an American teacher detained in Russia on drug charges was also released. (Los Angeles Times)
The new order builds on previous efforts to address the growing problem of Americans being detained for political leverage. In 2022, former President Joe Biden signed an executive order declaring the issue a national emergency and introduced the “D” indicator on State Department travel advisories to alert travelers to the risk of wrongful detention. But as the number of cases continues to rise—and as adversarial nations become more brazen—advocates and officials alike have pushed for even stronger measures. (CNN)
While the Trump administration has not detailed exactly how quickly it will use the new designation, officials made it clear that action is coming. “The point of the president signing this executive order is that there will be action,” a senior official said. Countries at risk of being designated will be notified and given a window of time to address the issue before penalties are imposed. (CNN)
Paul Whelan, a former wrongful detainee held in Russia for nearly six years, called the new designation a “good start” but urged the government to ensure that hostages are properly cared for after their return. His comments echo a broader concern: while the new penalties may help bring Americans home, the work doesn’t end there.
As the U.S. government prepares to wield this new tool, the world is watching. The message from Washington is unmistakable: the days of using Americans as pawns in geopolitical games may soon come with a much higher price tag.
