Trump to sign order removing sanctions on Syria under new leadership

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order to formally lift all sanctions on Syria on Monday afternoon. 

“This is in an effort to promote and support the country’s path to stability and peace. The order will remove sanctions on Syria while maintaining sanctions on the former president Assad or his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, persons linked to chemical weapons activities, ISIS and their affiliates, and Iranian proxies,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. 

Trump is “committed to supporting a Syria that is stable, unified and at peace with itself and its neighbors,” Leavitt said. 

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Some sanctions will still need to be lifted by Congress, and others date to 1979, when Syria was designated a state sponsor of terrorism. The administration has not yet lifted that designation. 

Trump met last month with Syria’s new interim leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, during a Middle East stint. 

From having a $10 million bounty on his head to sitting down with the U.S. president, the turnaround of the Syrian leader has been remarkable.

Al-Sharaa’s group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Syrian militant organization founded as an offshoot of al Qaeda, overthrew Assad in March. 

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Al-Sharaa had been campaigning hard for a relationship with Washington and sanctions relief: he offered to build a Trump Tower in Damascus, détente with Israel, and U.S. access to Syria’s oil and gas. He worked to soften the image of HTS and promised an inclusive governing structure. 

The new order comes as Israeli and Syrian officials are engaged in back-channel talks on a potential security and normalization deal. 

U.S. sanctions have included financial penalties on any foreign individual or company that provided material support to the Syrian government and prohibited anyone in the U.S. from dealing in any Syrian entity, including oil and gas. Syrian banks also were effectively cut off from global financial systems.