The US Treasury announced on Monday that Syria has been removed from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, Al Jazeera reports. Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, said: "Today's action will help foster additional investment in Syria to promote political and economic stability."
The step was announced in July after Trump met Syria's president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, at a NATO summit in Turkey, and takes effect now.
The second decision in the same announcement
The United States also rescinded the terrorist designation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly the al-Nusrah Front, which was once al-Qaeda's official branch in Syria and was led by al-Sharaa.
Those two acts belong together and neither should be reported without the other. A country has been delisted, and so has the armed group whose former commander now governs it. Whatever one concludes about that, it is the substance of what Washington did on Monday, and it is a considerable distance from where American policy stood two years ago.
What the designation actually blocked
Being on the list restricts US foreign assistance, defense exports and financial transactions. Removal lifts those impediments, which is why the reaction from Damascus was economic rather than political.
Safwat Raslan, the central bank governor, called it "a historic step that restores the country to its natural place in the global economic system". The finance minister, Mohammed Barnieh, described it as "a major and historic success for Syrian diplomacy".
The practical significance is about banking. A designated state is one that international banks will not process payments for, regardless of what any individual sanction says, because the compliance risk is not worth the business. Delisting is what makes ordinary transactions possible again, and reconstruction is impossible without them.
The sequence
Syria was designated for decades under Assad family rule. Bashar al-Assad was removed in December 2024. The United States and the European Union lifted broader sanctions in June 2025. Monday's step removes what remained of the formal designation.
We reported yesterday that Syria's foreign minister met the head of Mossad in Jordan in US-mediated talks, while Israeli strikes in Syria have continued. Rehabilitation in Washington and security conflict on the ground are running at the same time.
What we could not establish
We could not establish which sanctions remain in force, whether Israel or any regional government has responded to the delisting, what conditions if any were attached, or the legal instrument used. We verified this account from a single publication.
