A foreign fighter, who said he fought with the Syrian rebel groups that ousted the dictatorship of Bashar Assad, at his shop in Binnish, Syria, in May. Photo / Diego Ibarra Sanchez, the New York Times
After a coalition of rebels ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad, the Trump Administration mostly ignored Syria for months.
Then, United States President Donald Trump flipped the script.
During a visit to Saudi Arabia in May, he made a surprising announcement: The US would suspend long-standing economic sanctions in a goodwill gesture meant to give Syria “a chance at greatness”.
It was a head-spinning reversal that was cheered in Syria, where more than 90% of the population lives in poverty, according to the United Nations.
Then on Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order ending most of the sanctions. Not all sanctions are in his power to repeal — some require approval from Congress.
Even so, the move is a signal to other countries and financial institutions that they will not face repercussions from Washington for renewed economic dealings with Syria — throwing a lifeline to the new government in Damascus despite concerns about how its Islamist president will govern the country going forward.
As the US approach has warmed, the Trump Administration has signalled that it has limited interest in how Syria and other countries in the region run their internal affairs.
But over the past few months, US officials have laid out a number of expectations for how Syria handles issues of regional importance, such as security and relations with neighbouring states.
These were not presented as conditions, rather broader goals for President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the rebel forces that overthrew the Assad family dictatorship after five decades in power.
Here is a breakdown of what Washington has said it wants from Syria and how the new Government is responding.
Peaceful relations with Israel
Washington is keen that Syria not become a threat to important regional allies, particularly Israel.
When Trump met al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May, he urged the Syrian leader to take steps to normalise relations with Israel, which have long been hostile.
Trump has said he hopes to see Syria eventually join the Abraham Accords, which established formal ties between Israel and four Arab countries during Trump’s previous term.
The new US envoy to Syria, Thomas Barrack, has said he would like to see Syria seek a non-aggression pact with Israel for now.
In a sign that al-Sharaa is taking the matter seriously, diplomats and Israeli officials say representatives of the two countries have met discreetly.
Find and destroy chemical weapons
A top priority for the US is dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons programme, which started in the 1970s.
Syrian scientists developed sarin, chlorine and mustard gas stockpiles, some of which Assad’s security forces turned against their own people during the country’s 13-year civil war.
That prompted a 2013 agreement under which the United Nations’ Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons sent inspectors to shut down 27 sites related to chemical weapons production.
Syria’s new Government has invited in experts and is co-operating in sharing information on remaining stockpiles. But as many as 100 sites remain hidden, experts estimate, and controlling and destroying these sites will be a challenge in a country still fragmented by conflict.
Managing foreign fighters
Muslim fighters from around the world flocked to Syria as the 2011 protest movement against Assad devolved into an armed insurgency.
Many of them were jihadis who joined extremist groups like Isis or the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, which al-Sharaa founded and led for years. He broke ties with al-Qaeda in 2016 and has tried to distance his forces from their jihadi roots since.
But thousands of foreign fighters stayed with his rebel group or in separate formations that remained loyal. And he, in turn, has made it clear that he feels loyalty to those who fought alongside him.
US officials have, for years, worried that allowing these foreign fighters to remain in Syria could allow them to plot terrorist attacks abroad.
But al-Sharaa pushed back on initial US requests to purge them from his forces or expel them, and in fact has started to integrate them into his new military.
His officials argue it would be nearly impossible to return fighters to their home countries, which could refuse to accept them or could execute them.
And they warn that alienating such fighters in Syria could sow divisions and destabilise the fragile new system.
After Trump initially demanded that “all foreign terrorists” leave Syria, US officials are now seeking only “transparency” about where the foreign combatants are placed.
Remove Palestinian militant groups
Assad allowed some Palestinian militant groups to operate freely in Syria for years. The US has pushed for the removal of these groups from the country — something that America’s ally, Israel, would welcome.
Al-Sharaa’s Government in April arrested two senior members of the Palestinian armed faction Islamic Jihad, an Iran-backed backed group allied with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But a wider push may prove tricky.
Syrian officials are asking where, exactly, the officials and militants of these Palestinian groups should be sent. Neighbouring Lebanon, battered by Israel’s war with the Iran-backed group Hezbollah last year, is under pressure to crack down on Palestinian groups as well.
Syria’s other neighbours are also unlikely to host groups that could stoke unrest or draw Israeli attacks. A wholesale exile of Palestinian groups is therefore a difficult request for Syria.
The US also wants Syria to root out forces loyal to Iran, which for years used Syria as a critical land corridor connecting Iran to its most important regional ally, Hezbollah in Lebanon.
That is not a hard sell for al-Sharaa, who sees Iran and Hezbollah as complicit with the Assad regime. But he may need foreign intelligence help to do so.
Find missing Americans
A top priority for Trump has been to find Americans who went missing during Syria’s war, from those kidnapped and killed by Isis to those whose fates remain unknown, including American journalist Austin Tice.
Al-Sharaa has seemed keen to oblige. He met Tice’s mother before he met family members of some of the tens of thousands of Syrians whose loved ones are also still missing.
Some members of the former Assad regime say they have been questioned by Syria’s new officials as they look for new leads.
Prevent an Isis resurgence
During Syria’s civil war, Isis (Islamic State) captured a large chunk of eastern Syrian and ruled over it for years. A US-led international coalition, partnering with a Kurdish-led Syrian militia, waged a long and hard fight to wrest back that territory.
Now the spectre of an Isis resurgence looms over a country that is weak and divided after so many years of war.
US forces remain in some eight bases set up with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Barrack says the US goal is to draw down to one base.
The Kurdish-led force manages a number of prisons for suspected Isis fighters as well as two camps that house tens of thousands of spouses and children of Isis members.
Washington is eager to shut down these camps, where miserable conditions are seen to breed extremism.
That would require al-Sharaa’s Government to first take control of the camps, then find a way to repatriate their tens of thousands of residents.
Washington also wants his forces to take over running the high-security Isis prisons from the Kurdish-led forces.
Al-Sharaa recently sent a delegation to visit the camps and prisons.
But Western diplomats have warned that putting such an immense security undertaking on al-Sharaa’s fragile new security apparatus, which still does not control the territory surrounding that region, is risky.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Erika Solomon and Ben Hubbard
Photographs by: Diego Ibarra Sanchez, Daniel Berehulak
©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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