Trump administration lifts broad sanctions against Syria

The Trump administration on Friday lifted a wide range of sanctions against Syria, the first major step to fulfill a promise made this month by President Donald Trump to help the country rebuild after over a decade of devastating war.

The Treasury Department lifted sweeping regulations that had banned U.S. citizens and companies from making most financial transactions with Syrian individuals or entities. And the State Department placed a six-month waiver on other sanctions that came into effect in 2020 under the Caesar Act.

The moves are the most significant yet from the Trump administration to unwind years of sanctions on Syria, but many restrictions remain, and the temporary nature of the State Department waiver will do little to encourage the kind of long-term investment needed to rebuild the country, experts say.

In a statement, the Treasury Department said that it was “effectively lifting” the sanctions on Syria and that the move was “just one part of a broader U.S. government effort to remove the full architecture of sanctions imposed on Syria.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the waiver would “facilitate the provision of electricity, energy, water and sanitation, and enable a more effective humanitarian response across Syria.” Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates welcomed the sanctions relief in a statement, calling it a positive step to alleviate humanitarian and economic suffering.

Trump announced he would lift sanctions this month while in Saudi Arabia, where he met with the country’s new leader. The news was met with jubilation in the streets of Damascus. U.S. administrations have said that the sanctions were designed to put pressure on the Assad regime, but they also severely affected the general population by cutting it off from most of global trade.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the relief would “hopefully put the country on a path to a bright, prosperous and stable future.” The regulations lifted by the Treasury in a “general license” were issued in 2005 and have expanded multiple times since then, particularly after the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011.

The Treasury license allows transactions with entities such as Syrian banks, port and shipping companies, oil and gas companies, and its national airline. It also now permits transactions with Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and the department provided an exemption under the Patriot Act to allow U.S. financial institutions to hold accounts for the Commercial Bank of Syria.

Prohibitions still apply on transactions with some Syrian entities on a Treasury Department sanctions list, and on transactions that involve Russia, Iran or North Korea.

The move from the State Department placed a six-month waiver on sanctions that came into effect in 2020 under the Caesar Act. The Caesar Act had intensified “secondary sanctions” on Syria, which targeted non-U. S. companies that worked with the Syrian government, according to an analysis by the Carter Center.

The move is “a huge step forward, but it’s nonetheless just a step,” said Syrian sanctions expert Karam Shaar in a video statement. He emphasized there are many other layers of sanctions that remain in place on Syria but said the administration’s “extremely positive and wide framing” of the lifting of sanctions has been impactful.

“Framing usually plays a huge role. It’s not only about sanctions legislation themselves; economic actors are often affected by the framing as well,” said Shaar. However, he pointed out that after Friday’s moves, Syria’s largest telecom company still remained sanctioned, as were key members of the interim government, and while the Central Bank of Syria was delisted, its assets remained frozen.

Most of the U.S. sanctions on Syria were imposed during the previous government of Bashar al-Assad, who carried out serious abuses against civilians including the use of chemical weapons, according to State Department assessments, during a war that left large swaths of the country in ruins and hundreds of thousands of people killed.

Assad was toppled in December by rebel forces, paving the way for Syria’s reengagement with much of the world under the de facto government led by al-Sharaa, who was formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

The sanctions relief came with “the understanding that the country will not offer a safe haven for terrorist organizations and will ensure the security of its religious and ethnic minorities,” the Treasury Department said in a statement. It added that “the U.S. will continue monitoring Syria’s progress and developments on the ground.”

World leaders have closely watched al-Sharaa, whose rebel group was formerly affiliated with al-Qaida until 2016. Since taking the role of Syria’s president, al-Sharaa has presented himself as a moderate who is eager to work with Western nations, Persian Gulf states and other powers to rebuild Syria.

The next few months are critical for al-Sharaa as he seeks to stabilize the country after over a decade of conflict and a spiraling economic crisis. Ninety percent of Syrians live in poverty since the country’s gross domestic product fell from a prewar high of $252 billion to $9 billion in 2021, according to World Bank estimates, which analysts blame on sanctions as well as the war.