Archive May 13, 2025

United States President Donald Trump has announced that US sanctions on Syria will be lifted, in a huge boost to the government in Tehran, which took power after the overthrow of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad in December.

“There’s a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilising the country and keeping peace,” Trump said in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the first of a three-day visit to the Middle East, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. “I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness.”

Trump is also expected to meet Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Riyadh on Wednesday, in a further signal to the world that the international isolation of Syria should end.

In Syria, the news has been met with celebrations in the capital, Damascus, and elsewhere. There is hope the move will help turn around the country’s economy after more than a decade of war.

Let’s take a closer look.

What sanctions had been placed on Syria?

The US was just one of many countries that had placed sanctions on Syria during the former al-Assad regime, which governed the country from 1971 to 2024.

The US sanctions were wide-ranging. The US initially designated Syria a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” in 1979, which led to an arms embargo and financial restrictions, including on foreign assistance.

Further sanctions were imposed in 2004, including more arms export restrictions and limits on Syria’s economic interactions with the US.

After the war in Syria began in 2011, and al-Assad’s regime started attacking civilian antigovernment protesters, numerous other wide-ranging sanctions were imposed on Syria and regime-linked individuals. This included a freeze on Syrian government assets held abroad, a ban on US investments in Syria and restrictions on petroleum imports.

The US had also announced a $10m reward for the capture of Syria’s current leader, al-Sharaa, and listed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the organisation he ran before its dissolution with the fall of al-Assad, as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization”.

Why was Syria under sanctions?

The main tranche of sanctions was imposed during the early years of Syria’s war, when the US was supporting the country’s opposition and attempting to isolate the al-Assad regime, pointing to its human rights abuses, including the use of chemical weapons.

The “terrorist” designation placed on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was a result of its former association with al-Qaeda. This was one of the reasons there has been international wariness to remove sanctions on Syria even after the fall of al-Assad.

Why are they being lifted now?

Al-Sharaa has slowly been gaining international legitimacy for his government since it came to power in December. The US had already removed the reward for his capture, and the Syrian president has been able to travel internationally and meet world leaders, including in Saudi Arabia and France.

The new Syrian government has made a concerted effort to present itself as a moderate force that could be acceptable to the international community, including by distancing itself from designated “terrorist” groups, promising to cooperate with other countries on “counterterrorism” efforts and making statements supporting minority rights. The latter has been particularly important in light of sectarian fighting involving pro-government forces and minority groups after the fall of al-Assad.

The Reuters news agency also reported this week that Syria has attempted to convince the US that it is not a threat but a potential partner, including by saying it was engaged in indirect talks with Israel to deescalate tensions with the US’s Middle eastern ally – despite Israel’s bombing of Syria and occupation of its territory. There had also been talk of US-Syria business deals, even including a Trump Tower in Damascus.

Trump on Tuesday said that his decision to end the sanctions came after discussions with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Oh, what I do for the crown prince!” he said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said that US relationships with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE – all countries that had been pushing for an end to sanctions and support for the new Syrian government – had been an integral part of Trump’s decision.

“This wasn’t something that was too difficult for Trump to do,” Rahman said. “He didn’t need to get permission from anybody. He didn’t even need consent from Congress.”

Will investment now pour into Syria?

Because of the central role the US plays in the global financial system, the lifting of sanctions is a signal to the world that it can do business in Syria.

The sanctions had been economically debilitating for Syria, and presented a huge impediment for the new government, which is under pressure to improve living standards in a country where unemployment and poverty levels are high, and electricity blackouts are common.

Whether the US itself invests in Syria remains to be seen, but increased Arab and Turkish investment is likely.

Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump says that forging formal relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel would be a “dream”, but he wants the kingdom to do it on its “own time”.

The White House on Tuesday made public a flurry of economic and defence pacts with Saudi Arabia involving hundreds of billions of dollars, but any mention of Israel was conspicuously absent from the announcements.

The so-called “normalisation” drive between Saudi Arabia and Israel dominated his predecessor, Joe Biden’s, approach to the region, but the current US president is shifting focus elsewhere, analysts say.

“The Trump administration has made it clear they are willing to move forward on key agreements with Saudi Arabia without the previous condition of Saudi-Israel normalisation,” said Anna Jacobs, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a think tank.

“This probably reflects growing frustration in the Trump administration with Israeli military action across the region, especially in Gaza.”

‘Time is not right’

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute, also said that Trump has realised that with the ongoing war in Gaza and Israel’s refusal to negotiate the establishment of a Palestinian state, the “time is not right” for a Saudi Arabia-Israeli pact despite Biden’s emphasis on brokering a deal.

“I think the White House has finally acknowledged that a normalisation agreement at this time is not possible,” Coates Ulrichsen told Al Jazeera.

During his first term, Trump managed to broker the Abraham Accords between Israel and several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, which established formal relations with the US ally independently of the Palestinian issue.

However, the agreements were unsuccessful in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as evidenced by the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023.

But even before the war started, Israel had been intensifying its military raids against Palestinians and expanding illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, further dimming the prospects of a two-state solution to the conflict.

Despite the agreements’ apparent shortcomings, Biden made adding Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accords a focal point of his Middle East agenda, and US officials said they worked on securing a deal up until the final days of the administration, even as the war on Gaza was raging.

Biden has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that Hamas launched its October 7 attack against Israel in 2023 to thwart an agreement between the Saudis and Israelis.

Still, a day before he left office, Biden boasted that his Middle East policies created an opportunity for “the future of normalisation and integration of Israel with all its Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia”.

‘Off the table’

US officials and media reports said that Biden’s deal, which never materialised, would have brought a security pact between Riyadh and Washington and provided US help for Saudi Arabia to establish a civil nuclear programme in exchange for normalisation with Israel.

A major sticking point in that push has been the widely stated Saudi Arabian support for the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which conditions recognition of Israel on the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has categorically rejected the “land for peace” framework, pushing instead for deals with Arab countries that bypass Palestinians.

“This Israeli government won’t even provide lip service to the idea of a two-state solution, making it pretty impossible for Saudi Arabia to seriously consider moving forward with normalisation,” said Jacobs from the Arab Gulf States Institute.

“The Trump administration seems to have understood that it’s off the table, at least for now.”

In Riyadh, Trump announced an agreement to deepen security cooperation with Saudi Arabia.

The $142bn deal will provide Saudi Arabia with “state-of-the-art warfighting equipment and services” from US firms, the White House said.

It also includes “extensive training and support to build the capacity of the Saudi armed forces, including enhancement of Saudi service academies and military medical services”, it added.

While the weapons and training deals fall short of a NATO-like mutual defence pact, which may have been included as part of an accord with Israel, they take a bite from the US-backed carrots offered to the kingdom for normalisation, experts say.

“The announcements today do further deepen the links between Saudi and US security and defence interests,” Coates Ulrichsen said.

US-Israel rift?

Trump’s visit to the region comes as Israel has promised to not just continue, but expand, its devastating war on Gaza, which has killed more than 52,900 Palestinians, according to health authorities.

Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University, noted that Riyadh has described Israeli atrocities in Gaza as a “genocide”.

“The Saudis are not mincing their words; they are not holding back,” Elgindy told Al Jazeera. “They can’t now move toward normalisation with Israel after accusing Israel of genocide. That would just be ridiculous.”

After his trip to Saudi Arabia, Trump will head to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as part of the first planned foreign trips of his presidency, since attending Pope Francis’s funeral last month. Israel is not on the itinerary.

For Coates Ulrichsen and others, Trump’s apparent snub of Israel reflects unease in the US-Israeli alliance.

“It may be a signal that the White House sees much more value in deepening commercial and strategic relationships with the Gulf states at the moment, given that Israel remains mired in conflict,” Coates Ulrichsen told Al Jazeera.

Israel excluded

Tensions between the Trump administration and Netanyahu’s government have become more apparent in recent weeks despite the US’s military and diplomatic backing of Israel.

Trump confirmed talks with Iran over its nuclear programme during Netanyahu’s visit to the White House, despite the Israeli leader’s opposition to negotiations with Tehran.

Last week, the US president also declared a ceasefire with the Houthis. The deal did not demand an end to the Yemeni group’s attacks against Israel.

As Trump spoke in Riyadh on Tuesday, the Houthis fired another missile at Israel – part of a campaign they say aims to pressure an end to the war on Gaza.

The Trump administration also worked with mediators in Qatar and Egypt to secure the release of US citizen Edan Alexander, who served in the Israeli military and was captured by Hamas during the October 7 attack on Israel. According to Israeli media reports, Israel was excluded from those talks.

Different visions

Elgindy from Georgetown University said the apparent tensions are more than a “bump in the road”, but their impact on the US-Israeli relationship remains to be seen.

“Trump is making clear in word and deed that US and Israeli interests are not one and the same,” he said. “And that’s very significant because Biden didn’t do that.”

For now, Trump remains committed to US military aid to Israel even as it intensifies its bombardment and starvation campaign in Gaza.

And the US president has pushed on with his crackdown on critics of Israel at home, especially on college campuses.

Still, experts say that by skipping Israel during his Middle East trip and de-prioritising normalisation, Trump is pushing forward in pursuit of his own vision for the region.

On Tuesday, Trump lauded Gulf leaders whom he said are building a Middle East “where people of different nations, religions and creeds are building cities together – not bombing each other out of existence”.

That future seems at odds with what Israel appears to be seeking: asserting hegemony over the region with long-term bombing campaigns, including in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.