President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday to lift the economic sanctions program on Syria.
The president announced in May, during a trip to the Middle East, that he would lift the sanctions package as a means to help the new Syrian government stabilize following the devastating civil war and recent toppling of the Assad regime.
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The executive order “terminate[s] the United States’ sanctions program on Syria and this is an effort to promote the country’s path to stability and peace,” While House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Monday. “The order will remove sanctions on Syria while maintaining sanctions on the former President [Bashar al] Assad, his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, persons linked to chemical weapons activities, ISIS and their facilities and Iranian proxies.”
Rebels led by the terrorist group Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) overthrew the Assad regime in December 2024, and Ahmed al-Sharaa emerged as the new leader of the country. He has since made overtures to the Western world, saying that he will work to transform Syria.
Al-Sharaa met with Trump during his visit to the Middle East.
The executive order calls on the Secretary of State Marco Rubio to review Syria’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, HTS’s designation as a foreign terrorist organization, and the group’s and al-Sharaa’s designations as specially designated global terrorists. It also calls on Rubio to review the suspension of sanctions under the Caesar Act, which is a legislation that Trump signed into law in December 2019 that sanctions the Assad regime.
Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 20 that the new Syrian government could collapse and cause a “full-scale civil war of epic proportions,” if the U.S. doesn’t engage with the transitional government.
A couple of days after the secretary’s testimony, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued guidance rolling back some sanctions on banks, airlines, and al-Shaara. The department called that announcement a “major first step.”
Administration officials have indicated Syria could join the Abraham Accords, President Trump’s crowning foreign policy achievement from his first administration, which brokered normalization efforts between Israel and four Arab countries — Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco.
Leavitt said last week that when Trump met with al-Sharaa last month, “one of the requests that [Trump] made; for Syria to sign on to the Abraham Accords.”
The “way to entice” Syria to join the Abraham Accords “is to make it fruitful for them on an economic basis, on a civilization basis, on a peace and prosperity basis,” a senior administration official told reporters. “That’s all coming together and what’s happened between Israel and Iran gives that window. The moment that is here today, and they grasp it 100%, has not been there before.”
Some Arab leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have stressed the need for a long-term answer for Gaza reconstruction in any Israeli normalization agreement. The crown prince, like some others, has hardened the demand for a pathway to Palestinian statehood following the Israel-Hamas war, which continues to decimate the Gaza Strip.
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President Trump wants to see Israel and Hamas agree to a long-term ceasefire agreement soon. He said last Friday that a deal is possible “within the next week,” and said, “it’s close.”
The two sides had agreed to an 8-week ceasefire ahead of Trump’s inauguration in January, but Israel resumed military operations in March after the two sides could not come to a long-term solution. Hamas is still holding roughly 50 hostages, who were kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, roughly 20 months ago.