President Donald Trump will drop sanctions against Syria and meet with the nation’s new president Ahmed al-Shaara on Wednesday.
“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Trump said in a speech in Saudi Arabia.
“In Syria, which has seen so much misery and death, there is a new government that we must all hope will succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace,” he went on. “So I say good luck, Syria.”
Trump is expected to meet briefly with al-Shaara in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
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The nation was cut off from the global financial system under ousted President Bashar al-Assad’s government, amid 14 years of civil war.
Trump called the sanctions “brutal and crippling” but “important” at the time.
“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.”
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Al-Shaara, who previously had a $10 million terrorist bounty on his head by the U.S., had been campaigning hard for a relationship with the U.S. and sanctions relief: he offered to build a Trump Tower in Damascus, détente with Israel and U.S. access to Syria’s oil and gas.
His group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led Assad’s ouster last year. Originally founded as an offshoot of al-Qaeda, it has since worked to soften its image and lobbied to be delisted as a terrorist group.
The announcement came on the sidelines of a whirlwind Middle East tour where Trump is traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, whose government leaders were widely expected to press Trump to release the sanctions to help Syria’s economy.
Trump said that both Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Erdoğan had encouraged him to lift the sanctions.
“Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” Trump quipped.
U.S. sanctions had slapped financial penalties on any foreign individual or company that provided material support to the Syrian government and prohibited anyone in the U.S. from dealing in any Syrian entity, including oil and gas, and Syrian banks were effectively cut off from global financial systems.
The new Syrian government has cooperated with U.S. intelligence agencies and foiled several ISIS plots to attack Damascus. Syrian intelligence services arrested ISIS commander Abu al-Harith al-Iraqi in February.
But still, some are skeptical.
“Right now, Sharaa is not restricting political and civil liberties, but he’s an authoritarian by nature.” former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford told Fox News Digital.
Ford, who led the effort to put al-Sharaa on the terrorist list in 2012, said although al-Shaara is pragmatic, he is leading an extremely weak government.
“He doesn’t control all of Syria yet. The government in Damascus that he leads is not very strong, and it will take time to reassert all of its authority over Syria,” Ford said.
Fox News’ Chris Massaro contributed to this report.
