President Donald Trump notified Congress on Wednesday of his intent to remove Syria from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, opening a 45-day review period before a designation imposed under the elder Assad in 1979 would formally end.
Syria has been one of only four countries on the blacklist, alongside Iran, Cuba and North Korea. Lifting the label would clear the last major legal barrier keeping foreign banks and investors from doing business with Damascus, according to State Department officials.
Trump raised the move himself while seated beside Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. Asked whether he would rescind the designation, Trump said, “I think I will. Why wouldn’t I?” He said al-Sharaa had “done a great job” leading the country.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said hours later that the administration had formally notified lawmakers of the decision. “Lifting sanctions on Syria will unlock international trade and investment,” Rubio said, adding that the step followed counterterrorism assurances al-Sharaa’s government had put in writing.
The designation has already complicated business for American companies operating in Syria. Chevron and ConocoPhillips have signed agreements with Syria’s state oil company on the assumption the label would eventually be lifted, and Nokia’s sale of telecommunications equipment to Syria’s parliament was held up for months awaiting a U.S. export license, according to people familiar with the matter.
Al-Sharaa’s own record complicates the reset. He led Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist faction that began as an al-Qaeda affiliate before splitting off and emerging as the dominant rebel group in northwest Syria, fighting Bashar al-Assad’s forces, ISIS and rival militias. The UN and other organizations have accused HTS of torturing and executing detainees and of abuses against women and children. Al-Sharaa himself was removed from the U.S. and UN terrorist lists only last year.
The reversal has unfolded in stages since al-Sharaa’s forces toppled Assad in 2024. Trump signed an executive order lifting most Syria sanctions in June 2025. The UN Security Council adopted a U.S.-backed resolution easing sanctions on al-Sharaa that November, the same month he became the first Syrian president to visit Washington since the country’s 1946 independence. Congress repealed the Caesar Act, which had underpinned sanctions on Assad’s government, in December.
A bipartisan trio of lawmakers — Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina — pressed Rubio in a letter last week to finish the job, writing that the designation remained “the most significant remaining legal impediment to Syria’s reconstruction.” Wilson has separately argued the label was scaring off companies eager to invest, telling reporters, “we’re not looking for perfect governments.”
Al-Sharaa’s government has also moved to sever the ties that originally justified Syria’s place on the list, cutting off Hezbollah’s networks inside the country and ending Russia’s military presence at the Latakia airbase and the Tartus naval base.
Speaking alongside Trump on Wednesday, al-Sharaa credited “the historic decision made by Trump to lift the sanctions on Syria” for helping unify the country after its civil war.
Congress now has 45 days to attempt to block the rescission before it takes effect.
