President Donald Trump lifted long-standing U.S. sanctions on Syria on Monday to build diplomatic inroads with the new regime that toppled dictator Bashar al-Assad last year.
Trump signed an executive order to end the sanctions effective July 1, six months after rebels overthrew Assad’s regime and installed former al-Qaeda fighter Ahmed Al-Sharaa as Syria’s new president.
The executive order says the circumstances in Syria “have been transformed by developments over the past 6 months, including the positive actions taken by the new Syrian government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa.”
Some of the sanctions against the Assad regime were in place for decades, and revoking them marks a major step in opening up Syria to the West. Trump met with Al-Sharaa last month in Saudi Arabia, and Trump promised to stop the sanctions in exchange for Syria’s normalizing relations with the U.S. and Israel and taking concrete actions to combat terrorist cells. In Riyadh, Trump praised the new Syrian leader and said he promised to establish diplomatic ties with Israel.
“While the sanctions program is ending, sanctions remain in effect for individuals and entities related to Bashar al-Assad and his cronies — as well as human rights abusers, captagon traffickers, persons linked to Syria’s past proliferation activities, ISIS and Al-Qa’ida affiliates, and Iran and its terrorist proxies,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
“These actions reflect the President’s vision of fostering a new relationship between the United States and a Syria that is stable, unified, and at peace with itself and its neighbors.”
In line with Trump’s executive order, Rubio said he would examine the foreign terrorist designation of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian Islamist group that Al-Sharaa led under the name Mohammad Al-Julani, and examine the Specially Designated Global Terrorist designations for HTS and Al-Sharaa.
The Assad regime collapsed in December after more than 50 years of tyrannical rule by Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad, and a civil war that lasted over a decade. The rebels quickly seized control of Damascus in early December 2024 after launching an offensive the previous month that met with little resistance.
Assad’s grip on Syria was weakened because its main allies, Russia and Iran, were heavily occupied by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Israel’s decimation of Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon also took away a key ally for the Assad regime.
Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia once the rebels captured Damascus, and Moscow gave him and his family asylum.
The collapse of the Assad regime was expected to increase instability in the Middle East because of the Islamist rebels, but so far Al-Sharaa has attempted to make inroads with the West. Violence against religious and ethnic minorities remains an issue in Syria, with a recent suicide bombing at a Greek Orthodox church killing 25 Syrian Christians and wounding 63 others.
Israel and Syria are in “advanced talks” to lower hostilities between them and come to a security pact, the Times of Israel reported earlier this month. Syria and Israel have been in conflict for decades, and the Israelis initially took a hard-line approach against the Syrian regime. However, the U.S.’s attempts at diplomatic outreach to the new Syrian government helped soften Israel’s attitude and could pave the way to a historic deal.