Natasha Hall and Ninar Fawal
During his trip to the Middle East in mid-May, U.S. President Donald Trump did something extraordinary. On the Saudi leg of his four-day tour, the president issued a sweeping change to U.S. policy toward Syria. First, he announced, to riotous applause in Riyadh, that the United States would suspend all sanctions on the country as the Syrian government navigates a difficult transition following the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December. The following day, Trump met publicly with Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Shara, a former al-Qaeda fighter who just months ago had a $10 million U.S. government bounty on his head. After the meeting, Trump referred to Shara as a young, attractive guy with a “strong past.”
In taking these abrupt steps, Trump skirted what in any other U.S. administration would likely have been a long and tedious policymaking process. For months, many Syrians and Syria watchers had worried that the United States might never lift its sanctions. Washington first imposed sanctions on Syria in 1979, when it declared its regime to be a state sponsor of terrorism, triggering a ban on arms sales and other restrictions on exports to the country. Congress imposed additional sanctions in the early years of the twenty-first century. After Syria’s civil war began in 2011, both the United States and Europe added further restrictions. Armed groups within Syria—some of which are now represented in the government in Damascus—were also issued terrorist designations and therefore remain subject to sanctions. Together, these measures largely cut Syria off from international trade and investment and have been a major barrier to economic recovery in the war-ravaged country.
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