U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025.
Hamad I Mohammed | Reuters
The U.S. will remove all sanctions on Syria, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday.
“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Trump told a packed auditorium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia during the first appearance of his four-day visit to the Middle East.
“In Syria, which has seen so much misery and death, there is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace. That’s what we want to see,” he said in a wide-ranging speech that focused on his own time in office and U.S. relations with the Middle East.
“In Syria, they’ve had their share of travesty, war, killing many years. That’s why my administration has already taken the first steps toward restoring normal relations between the United States and Syria for the first time in more than a decade,” Trump said.
Syria has been designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism by the U.S. government since 1979. Additional U.S. sanctions were imposed on the country in 2004 and again in 2011, after the regime of then-President Bashar al Assad launched a brutal crackdown on anti-government uprisings.
A drone view shows Damascus city, after fighters of the ruling Syrian body ousted Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Syria, December 13, 2024.
Yosri Aljamal | Reuters
In the roughly 14 years since, the country has been devastated by civil war, sectarian violence, and brutal terrorists attacks, including the Islamic State takeover of parts of the country in 2014 and subsequent Western-led bombing campaign to eradicate the extremist group.
The toppling of the Assad regime during a shock offensive by anti-Assad militia groups in December of 2024 stunned the global community, and brought about the prospect of a new beginning for the devastated country. Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa — a former Al Qaeda member who describes himself as reformed — currently leads the country’s transitional government.
The sanctions on Syria were “brutal and crippling,” Trump said, suggesting that they no longer served an important function. “Now, it’s their time to shine,” he said of the country. “We’re taking them all off.”
“So I say, Good luck Syria. Show us something very special, like they’ve done, frankly, in Saudi Arabia.”