The United States will remove all sanctions against Syria, said President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
“I will order the attitude of sanctions against Syria to give you a chance of size”
“In Syria, which has experienced so much misery and death, there is a new government that hopefully will succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace. We want to see that,” he said in a far-reaching speech that focused on his own term and the US relationships with the Middle East.
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“They killed their share of travesty, war and many years in Syria. That is why my government has taken the first steps to restore normal relationships between the United States and Syria for the first time in more than a decade,” said Trump.
Syria has been expelled from the US government to the state sponsor of terrorism since 1979. In 2004 and 2011, additional US sanctions were imposed against the state after the regime of the then President Bashar Assad had started a brutal approach to the rise of the government government.
In the approximately 14 years since then, the country was attacked by civil war, sectarian violence and brutal terrorists, including the takeover of parts of the country in 2014 and the subsequent western bomb campaign to eliminate the extremist group.
A girl holds a Syrian flag, as people celebrate after US President Donald Trump would order sanctions against Syria in Damascus, Syria, May 13, 2025 on Tuesday.
Yamam al Shaar | Reuters
The fall of the Assad regime during a shock offensive by anti-assadic militia groups in December 2024 fascinated the global community and led to a fresh start for the destroyed country. Syria's new President Ahmed al-Sharaa-a former member of Al-Qaida, which is currently reformed by the country's transitional government.
Syria remained among countless international sanctions, but those imposed by the United States, were the hardest because they also apply to third parties and held other countries and groups from acting with the country.
The United Nations and aid organizations such as the International Committee for the Red Cross as well as the Arab league and other NGOs urged the devastating earthquake of 2023, which hit Syria and the neighbors of Türkiye. The sanctions not only impaired the potential for economic progress, but also disabled the ability of aid organizations and governments to provide rapid humanitarian aid, according to these organizations.
In recent years, other Arab countries have been demanding efforts to reintegrate Syria into the Arabic folds. The United Arab Emirates and Jordan campaigned for the Return of Syria to the Arab league in the last few years of the Assad Regime and fought diplomatically for Damascus.
Saudi Arabia was more careful, was also committed to re-occupying, and Trump said in his speech that his decision to raise sanctions was at the request of Saudi Crown Prince and De-Facto leader Mohammed Bin Salman.
“The lifting of sanctions has been the greatest moment for Syria since the beginning of the conflict in 2011,” Kamal Alam, advisor to a Damascus family office that invests in Syria with Gulf Partners, told CNBC.
“The removal of sanctions against Syria is a Saudi project that MBS actually started during Assad's time,” said Alam, moving into the crown prince through his initials. “However, it is the new government that will use the advantage of the Trump MBS relationship. Trump set itself the goal of owing MBS and also thanks [Turkish President Recep Tayyip]Erdogan that he decided to remove sanctions.
The sanctions against Syria were “brutal and crippled,” said Trump in his speech, which indicates that they no longer performed an important function. “Now it's time to shine,” he said about the country. “We take them all.”
“So I say, good luck, Syria. Show us something very special that honestly did in Saudi Arabia.”
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