Trump: Syrian President Has “Real Shot” At Pulling Syria Together
President of the United States Donald Trump met for the first time with Syrian interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, the first meeting between a president of the United States and a Syrian president in 25 years.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One after the meeting in Riyadh that he thought it went “great”, describing al-Sharaa as a “young, attractive guy”. “Strong past, very strong past, a fighter, but he’s got a real shot at pulling it together”, continued Trump, who added that Turkish President Recep Erdogan shared the same opinion.
Erdogan had attended the meeting by phone, with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attending in person.
In a readout supplied by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Trump urged al-Sharaa to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel by signing onto the Abraham Accords with Israel, tell all foreign terrorists to leave Syria, deport Palestinian terrorists, help the United States to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State, and assume responsibility for detention centres holding Islamic State fighters in Northeast Syria.
The meeting came a day after Trump announced on the first day of his trip to the Middle East that he would order the lifting of all sanctions on Syria, crediting Mohammed bin Salman for leading efforts to lift them after rebel groups led by al-Sharaa overthrew the Assad regime in December 2024. “Oh, what I do for the Crown Prince”, said Trump after announcing the move in Riyadh.
The most crippling U.S. sanctions on Syria were imposed after 2011, with the sanctions aiming to restrict the government of Bashar al-Assad and its cronies’ ability to access the U.S. financial system after its repression of the Syrian Revolution triggered the Syrian Civil War. The breadth of these sanctions expanded significantly with Trump’s 2020 signing of the Caesar Act, which required the U.S. to pursue sanctions on “third country” entities that conducted trade with the Assad government in a wide range of areas.
Sanctions relief following the fall of the Assad regime has been a core focus for advocacy groups, who say the lifting of U.S. sanctions in particular are key to facilitating the aid and investments needed to rebuild a Syrian economy hollowed out by over a decade of civil war and sanctions.
al-Sharaa has sought to portray himself as open to engagement with the United States over shared security concerns like the Islamic State, economic interests like access to Syrian oil and gas reserves, and even a “Trump Tower” in Damascus. While supported by Gulf Arab monarchies and Turkey, the interim president continues to face skepticism in Western capitals due to his past as a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq and subsequent leadership of Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian rebel group that was al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, despite his subsequent split from al-Qaeda and renunciation of the group’s ideology.