After meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said he intends to remove Syria from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
“I think I will. Why wouldn’t I? He’s done a great job,” Trump responded when reporters asked if Syria could be stricken from the list.
Trump said Syria has become “very stable” under Sharaa’s leadership and “we’re proud of that.”
Trump also suggested Syria “could help with Hezbollah,” the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group that has attacked Israel from both Lebanese and Syrian soil.
President Trump has spoken highly of Sharaa since their first meeting at the White House in November 2025, despite the Syrian leader’s history as a member of al-Qaeda and his time in prison after being captured by U.S. forces in Iraq. Trump described Sharaa as a “young, attractive guy” and a “tough guy” with a “very strong past” after that meeting.
Sharaa led an alliance of insurgents and jihadis to overthrow Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in December 2024, bringing a surprise end to the long and brutal Syrian civil war. Sharaa has shown interest in mending fences with the United States and European nations and his government is not overly fond of Assad’s former patrons, Russia and Iran.
Trump lifted what sanctions he could from Syria by executive order in June 2025, and a few months later Congress permanently repealed sanctions that were imposed against the Assad regime. The repeal was unconditional, but Congress included a requirement for periodic reports on counter-terrorism and human rights progress under Sharaa’s government.
The Treasury Department removed Syria from its list of “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” in November 2025, at the same time the United Nations removed Syria from its own sanctions list.
As of Wednesday, Syria remains on the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) list, a much more exclusive document that currently names only three other nations: Cuba, North Korea, and Iran.
Syria was one of the first countries added to the list in 1979 because it provided material and political support to Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, plus Hezbollah in Lebanon. The bloody hand of Bashar Assad’s predecessor and father, Hafez Assad, was seen in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week, arguing that Syria no longer belongs on the SST.
“Since the fall of the Assad regime, President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and the new Syrian government have demonstrated continued commitment to counterterrorism operations within Syria,” the letter said.
“Syria’s SST designation represents the most significant remaining legal impediment to Syria’s reconstruction,” it said. “Its removal could create new opportunity for foreign investment, economic development and capacity building to ensure the Syrians can remain capable and willing partners to the United States.”
The letter was signed by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), plus Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC).
The conditions for inclusion on the SST are fairly strict and, with the Assad regime long gone, a strong case can be made that Syria no longer meets them, even if its progress on various other reforms proves to be less than hoped for.
The arguments for keeping Syria on the list include the enormous value of removing its name. As Shaheen, Warren, and Wilson noted, a great deal of commerce, investment, and material assistance to the new government is blocked as long as its name appears on the SST.
Some critics of the junta in Damascus believe a harder bargain should be struck for declassifying it as a state sponsor of terrorism, perhaps even requiring free and fair elections that would conclude Sharaa’s “interim” presidency. As he indicated on Wednesday, Trump evidently wants to take Syria off the SST – but his State Department has been cautiously reviewing that move for over a year now.
Rep. Wilson told Semafor on Tuesday that the time has come, because American companies “want to make investments” in the new Syria, but “the designation is an impediment.”
“We’re not looking for perfect governments,” he noted.
“And then there are people who benefit sadly from division and are trying to divide Syria – and it could be Iranian influence, or it could be extremists around the world trying to make it not possible for there to be a sovereign, secure, peaceful, and prosperous Syria,” he added.
Charles Lister, director of the Syria Initiative at the Middle East Institute, pointed out that keeping Syria on the SST any longer could be legally challenging, since the conditions for its inclusion are no longer valid.
“Everything I’ve heard is that it is finally a done deal in the last two or three weeks and, in Trump style, he’d like to announce it … with Sharaa,” Lister predicted.
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