The Trump administration is working to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organisation, the White House said on Tuesday, which would bring sanctions against Egypt's oldest Islamist movement.

The Trump administration is working to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organisation, the White House said on Tuesday, which would bring sanctions against Egypt's oldest Islamist movement.

‘The president has consulted with his national security team and leaders in the region who share his concern, and this designation is working its way through the internal process,’ White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in an email.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi urged US President Donald Trump to take the step during an April 9 visit to the White House, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing officials familiar with the matter.

After the meeting, Trump praised Sisi as a ‘great president,’ as a bipartisan group of US lawmakers raised concerns about Sisi's record on human rights.

The Muslim Brotherhood, or Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, is a revivalist Islamic movement, formed in Egypt in 1928.

One of the oldest and most influential Islamic movements in the world, the Brotherhood was declared a "terror group" by Egypt in 2013 after El-Sisi led a military coup against Mohamed Morsi, a Brotherhood member and the country's first democratically-elected president.