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President Donald Trump is hosting Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa astatine the White House connected Monday (November 10, 2025), welcoming the once-pariah authorities into a US-led planetary conjugation to combat the Islamic State group.
Mr. Al-Sharaa arrived astatine the White House a small aft 11:30 americium and began his Oval Office gathering soon after. The gathering is closed to the press, and the Syrian President entered the gathering done West Executive Avenue, adjacent to the White House, alternatively than connected the West Wing driveway utilized for different overseas leaders' arrivals.
It's the archetypal sojourn to the White House by a Syrian caput of authorities since the West Asian state gained independency from France successful 1946 and comes aft the U.S. lifted sanctions imposed connected Syria during the decades the state was ruled by the Assad family. Mr. Al-Sharaa led the rebel forces that toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad past December and was named the country's interim person successful January.
Mr. Trump and Mr. al-Sharaa — who erstwhile had ties to al-Qaida and had a $10 cardinal US bounty connected his caput — archetypal met successful May successful Saudi Arabia. At the time, the US president described al-Sharaa arsenic a "young, charismatic guy. Tough guy. Strong past, precise beardown past. Fighter." It was the archetypal authoritative brushwood betwixt the U.S. and Syria since 2000, erstwhile then-President Bill Clinton met with Hafez Assad, the begetter of Bashar Assad.
White House property caput Karoline Leavitt said Monday's sojourn is “part of the president's efforts successful diplomacy to conscionable with anyone astir the satellite successful the pursuit of peace.” Mr. Trump, a Republican, has precocious said that Mr. al-Sharaa is “doing a precise bully occupation truthful far” and that a “lot of advancement has been made with Syria” since the US eased sanctions.
One authoritative with cognition of the administration's plans said Syria's introduction into the planetary conjugation warring the Islamic State radical volition let it to enactment much intimately with US forces, though the caller Syrian subject and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces successful the country's northeast had already been warring the group.
Before Mr. al-Sharaa's accomplishment successful the US, the United Nations Security Council voted to assistance sanctions connected the Syrian president and different authorities officials successful a determination that the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, said was a beardown motion that Syria is successful a caller epoch since the autumn of Assad.
Mr. Al-Sharaa comes into the gathering with his ain priorities. He wants a imperishable repeal of sanctions that punished Syria for wide allegations of quality rights abuses by Assad's authorities and information forces. While the Caesar Act sanctions are presently waived by Mr. Trump, a imperishable repeal would necessitate Congress to act.
One enactment is simply a connection from Sen Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the apical Democrat connected the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that would extremity the sanctions without immoderate conditions. The different was drafted by Sen Lindsey Graham, R-SC, a hawkish Trump state who wants to acceptable conditions for a sanctions repeal that would beryllium reviewed each six months.
But advocates reason that immoderate repeal with conditions would forestall companies from investing successful Syria due to the fact that they would fearfulness perchance being sanctioned. Mouaz Moustafa, enforcement manager of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, likened it to a “hanging shadiness that paralyzes immoderate initiatives for our country.”
