Trump Lifts Most Syria Sanctions in Major Policy Shift

Rabat — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday officially removing most US economic sanctions on Syria.

The US President is delivering on a promise he made to the country’s new interim leader earlier this year.

The move comes to help the war-torn country build stability and peace after more than a decade of a devastating civil war.

In May, Trump met with Syria’s interim leader, Ahmed Al Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia and pledged to lift sanctions while exploring normal diplomatic relations.

“This is another promise made and promise kept,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday.

The decree enacts sanctions relief to “entities critical to Syria’s development, the operation of its government, and the rebuilding of the country’s social fabric.”

Opening doors to investment

US Treasury officials said the order is a step towards ending Syria’s isolation from global financial systems and encouraging investment from neighboring countries and the US.

Brad Smith, Treasury’s acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said the changes will set the stage for global commerce and attract regional investments.

The US first granted Syria broad exemptions from sanctions in May as an initial step toward lifting penalties that have lasted nearly half a century.

Monday’s executive order goes further by removing a national emergency declaration that former President George W. Bush issued in response to Syria’s occupation of Lebanon and weapons programs.

Trump also lifted five other previous executive orders related to Syria.

What stays in place

The new policy doesn’t remove all restrictions. Sanctions on former President Bashar Assad, his family, top aides, and officials who committed human rights abuses or participated in drug trafficking remain active. The order also leaves untouched Assad associates involved in Syria’s chemical weapons program.

Congress passed a major set of sanctions called the Caesar Act in 2019, targeting anyone doing business with Syria’s military, intelligence, or other suspect institutions. While Trump’s administration has granted temporary waivers for these sanctions, only Congress can permanently repeal them through new legislation.

The US still classifies Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism and considers Al Sharaa’s group a foreign terrorist organization, though the State Department says it’s reviewing these designations.

Sanctions on terrorist groups and manufacturers of Captagon, a psychostimulant drug, also remain in force.

Syrian government response

Officials from the Syrian government welcomed Trump’s move. Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Asaad Al Shaibani posted on X that the official lifting of sanctions “will open the door of long-awaited reconstruction and development.”

“It will lift the obstacle against economic recovery and open the country to the international community,” he noted.