US engagement with Syria has picked up recently, but Washington is pressing Damascus on terrorism-related issues
Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani made his first visit to the United States in late April, nearly five months after the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad. The US administration has yet to extend official recognition to Syria’s new authorities, and it has been slow to lift sanctions. A timeline for establishing diplomatic ties remains elusive, even as US and Syrian officials engage in a cautious process of re-engagement.
What’s next
Subsidiary Impacts
- Economic challenges will undermine the political transition, especially if the six-month waiver of US sanctions is not renewed or extended.
- Syria is unlikely to normalise relations with Israel, especially in the absence of a regionwide initiative to do so led by Saudi Arabia.
- Saudi Arabia and Qatar will probably lobby US President Donald Trump to expedite sanctions relief during his upcoming Gulf tour.
Analysis
Washington has been slower to restore relations with Syria than many of its counterparts in Europe and the Middle East, both in terms of political engagement and practical measures to alleviate economic and humanitarian hardship (see SYRIA: Damascus is working to build regional goodwill – April 15, 2025 and see GULF STATES: Policy toward Syria will be pragmatic – January 23, 2025).
Saudi Arabia and Qatar led the way in diplomatic outreach after Assad was ousted, extending support to the transitional government and more recently agreeing to settle Syria’s USD15mn debt to the World Bank.
The EU suspended sanctions on the banking and energy sectors in Syria on February 24, and it pledged EUR2.5bn for Syria at a conference in Brussels on March 17 (see SYRIA: Economic woes are unlikely to subside soon – April 3, 2025).
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom has unfrozen the assets of the central bank and 23 other entities including financial and oil companies on March 6. On April 24, it lifted sanctions on twelve government agencies and media outlets to assist the transition process.
Limited engagement
In contrast, the Trump administration has been slow to engage the new transitional authority. In large part, this is due to the jihadist background of many of Damascus’s leaders and key figures, including President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
In 2018, Washington had designated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham; which Sharaa headed prior to the transition, as a terrorist organisation. Indeed, Washington offered a USD10mn reward for Sharaa’s capture, although this was lifted in December 2024. This history has contributed to US hesitancy, as officials watched the political transition in Syria unfold.
Another element is that policy capacity may still be limited within the administration. Many mid-level positions remain unfilled. Recent changes at the National Security Council and at the Department of Defense may also suggest challenges of institutional capacity.
The administration may also have limited bandwidth for Syria at this point. Besides tariff policies, it is also heavily focused on the Iran talks and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
US sanctions regime
Congress passed the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act in 2019, which imposed sanctions on the Syrian government and its allies for human rights abuses and the use of chemical weapons. This came into effect in June 2020. In December 2024, the Biden administration extended the Caesar Act for another five years until 2029, and both the terror designation and the sanctions remain in place, albeit with a limited easing of restrictions.
Washington has not been forthcoming with substantive support
On January 6, the Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a general license that authorised certain transactions with the new Syrian government for six months. The license reassured aid groups and banks that the provision of humanitarian assistance, including water and electricity, would not violate the sanctions regime.
General License 24 expires on July 7, and the scale of the economic challenges facing the Syrian authorities after 14 years of conflict means that any failure to renew or extend the license would have a severe and immediate impact on the ground.
A new impetus
With this deadline looming, the pace of US-Syrian contact accelerated somewhat in late-April (see SYRIA: Washington could prepare grounds for withdrawal – April 16, 2025 and see SYRIA: US engagement will pick up only slowly – March 26, 2025).
- Sharaa received two Republican members of Congress, Cory Mills and Marlin Stutzman, in Damascus on April 26 as part of an unofficial visit organised by the Syrian-American Alliance for Peace and Prosperity.
- Shaibani met as-yet unnamed Department of State officials on April 29 during his visit to New York, reportedly to discuss counterterrorism cooperation, but few details have been released.
- Damascus has responded in writing to a list of eight conditions for partial sanctions relief that was handed by a senior US official to Shaibani at the Brussels conference in March.
The list of conditions illustrates the ongoing issues that officials in Washington see as necessary confidence-building measures for more concrete cooperative steps. They include:
- the destruction of any existing stockpiles of chemical weapons;
- the removal of foreign fighters;
- granting the United States permission to undertake counterterrorism strikes on Syrian soil;
- undertakings not to threaten Israel’s security or give senior governing positions to non-Syrians; and
- the creation of a liaison office to coordinate in the search for missing US citizens, such as Austin Tice.
Although progress has been made on several of these conditions — such as chemical stockpiles, Israel and missing US citizens — the US demand for authority to carry out strikes on Syrian territory is said to be a sticking point.
