Update, 7/1: President Trump signed an executive order this week “terminating” the United States’ Syria sanctions program.
The order maintains sanctions on former leader Bashar al-Assad, along with “his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, persons linked to chemical weapons activities, ISIS or its affiliates, and Iranian proxies.” Repealing some other sanctions will require congressional approval.
The Brief’s original May 14 story continues below.
President Trump announced Tuesday that he would move to end longstanding U.S. sanctions against Syria and normalize government relations, months after a U.S.-designated terrorist group took control of the country and installed its leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, as interim president.
The announcement jolts a U.S. sanctions framework that has quarantined Syria since the early 2000s. The U.S. has designated Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism for even longer, dating to 1979.
“There is a new [Syrian] government that will hopefully succeed,” Trump said during comments in Riyadh.
State of play: What began with terrorism-related restrictions after the September 11, 2001 attacks hardened into a near-total embargo with the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Primary sanctions froze Syrian government assets and banned most U.S. trade, investment and dollar clearing. The U.S., notably, sanctioned al-Sharaa himself in 2013.
Secondary sanctions, meanwhile, have threatened non-U.S. entities from investing in Syria’s oil, gas, construction or defense sectors. In 2019, Congress additionally authorized the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, or Caesar Act, imposing mandatory secondary sanctions against those participating in reconstruction projects under then-president Bashar al-Assad.
Core measures—an outright ban on U.S. goods and services, blocks on Syrian state institutions and broad prohibitions on dollar-clearing—were imposed by executive order and would require new legal authorities to unwind.
But what seem far more likely to remain are targeted sanctions on the ex-president Assad, his leading military and intelligence lieutenants, and a web of regime-aligned businessmen that currently sit on Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list.
What could be next: If U.S. policy does open the door to Syria for the first time in more than a decade, the country would turn from an outright no-go to a calculated-risk frontier market.
Global banks, institutional investors and multinational companies bidding for upstream oil blocks, liquified natural gas infrastructure and telecom licenses will be watching for pathways or sectoral carve-outs that could signal where opportunity—and residual risk—will lie.
Even an immediate waiver for U.S. trade, however, would not automatically neutralize secondary sanctions that target non-U.S. companies from doing business in Syria.
Multinationals will have to map exposure as it relates to state-owned refineries, Assad-linked construction firms, and banks linked to Assad’s patronage network to root out hidden sanctions risk.
Read more from the Brief:
The order maintains sanctions on former leader Bashar al-Assad, along with “his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, persons linked to chemical weapons activities, ISIS or its affiliates, and Iranian proxies.” Repealing some other sanctions will require congressional approval.
The Brief’s original May 14 story continues below.
President Trump announced Tuesday that he would move to end longstanding U.S. sanctions against Syria and normalize government relations, months after a U.S.-designated terrorist group took control of the country and installed its leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, as interim president.
The announcement jolts a U.S. sanctions framework that has quarantined Syria since the early 2000s. The U.S. has designated Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism for even longer, dating to 1979.
“There is a new [Syrian] government that will hopefully succeed,” Trump said during comments in Riyadh.
State of play: What began with terrorism-related restrictions after the September 11, 2001 attacks hardened into a near-total embargo with the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Primary sanctions froze Syrian government assets and banned most U.S. trade, investment and dollar clearing. The U.S., notably, sanctioned al-Sharaa himself in 2013.
Secondary sanctions, meanwhile, have threatened non-U.S. entities from investing in Syria’s oil, gas, construction or defense sectors. In 2019, Congress additionally authorized the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, or Caesar Act, imposing mandatory secondary sanctions against those participating in reconstruction projects under then-president Bashar al-Assad.
- For context: The EU suspended core restrictive measures on Syria in February that had targeted banking, its energy and transportation sectors, and luxury goods.
Core measures—an outright ban on U.S. goods and services, blocks on Syrian state institutions and broad prohibitions on dollar-clearing—were imposed by executive order and would require new legal authorities to unwind.
But what seem far more likely to remain are targeted sanctions on the ex-president Assad, his leading military and intelligence lieutenants, and a web of regime-aligned businessmen that currently sit on Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list.
What could be next: If U.S. policy does open the door to Syria for the first time in more than a decade, the country would turn from an outright no-go to a calculated-risk frontier market.
Global banks, institutional investors and multinational companies bidding for upstream oil blocks, liquified natural gas infrastructure and telecom licenses will be watching for pathways or sectoral carve-outs that could signal where opportunity—and residual risk—will lie.
Even an immediate waiver for U.S. trade, however, would not automatically neutralize secondary sanctions that target non-U.S. companies from doing business in Syria.
Multinationals will have to map exposure as it relates to state-owned refineries, Assad-linked construction firms, and banks linked to Assad’s patronage network to root out hidden sanctions risk.
Read more from the Brief:
