By Ethan Faverino |

The McCain Institute’s Freedom for Political Prisoners Initiative (FPPI) praised President Donald Trump’s newly signed Executive Order on Strengthening Efforts to Protect U.S. Nationals from Wrongful Detention Abroad.

The order establishes a groundbreaking “State Sponsors of Wrongful Detention” designation, empowering the U.S. Department of State to impose sanctions, visa restrictions, export controls, foreign assistance cuts, and travel bans on nations that systemically detain Americans and other foreign nationals for political leverage.

By codifying tools long advocated by advocates like the FPPI, the order transforms wrongful detention into a strategic liability for offending states, potentially aiding negotiation for the release of detainees and preventing future abductions.

Ambassador Roger D. Carstens, inaugural Senior Distinguished Fellow of the John McCain Freedom for Political Prisoners Initiative and former Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (SPEHA) said, “I am grateful to see the Trump Administration’s new executive order creating a ‘state sponsor of wrongful detention’ designation that can be levied against those who would take our citizens unjustly. This executive order starts to codify the very tools we have long advocated for—tools that, for the first time, make wrongful detention a strategic liability for any state. We’ve moved from response to prevention; now, with sanctions and designations in place, deterrence is real—and it’s backed by the full force of U.S. policy. We need to keep doing more to impose even harsher deterrence on countries who dare to wrongfully take Americans and hold them hostage.”

The executive order authorizes the Secretary of State to label a foreign government as a “State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention” if it engages in or supports such practices, including detentions on its soil or failures to release confirmed wrongful detainees after U.S. notification.

Designations can be lifted only if the government releases detainees, enacts policy changes, and offers credible assurances against recurrence.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the measure in a press statement, declaring, “Anyone who uses an American as a bargaining chip will pay the price.  This administration is not only putting America first but also putting Americans first.”

The initiative comes amidst a global crisis, where at least 30 American citizens are currently wrongfully detained in countries such as Iran, Venezuela, Eritrea, Syria, and Afghanistan.

Sarah Moriaty, a member of the FPPI Advisory Board and the daughter of a former FBI agent  who was wrongfully detained by Iran in 2007, later dying in custody, said, “We have watched in horror as the practice of taking American citizens hostage as political leverage has not only escalated but run rampant by the acts of many rogue nations.”

Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.