LONDON: Two members of Congress visited the Syrian Arab Republic as part of efforts to permanently repeal US sanctions placed on the country during its civil war.
Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Rep. Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina, met with Syria’s transitional president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, in Damascus on Monday along with other top officials.
They said ending the sanctions placed on the regime of former leader Bashar Assad is crucial to allow the country to recover from years of conflict, and to attract outside investment.
“A Syria that can stand on its own after ridding itself of the Assad regime will be a cornerstone for regional stability in the Middle East,” Shaheen said in a statement. “America is ready to be a partner to a new Syria that moves in the right direction.”
She added: “There is a long way to go, but it’s very positive and the potential is really amazing. The people that we met with were hopeful about the future.”
Wilson told reporters in the US: “I, over the years, have been working with the Syrian-American community, and they’ve always had a dream that one day Damascus would be free, and I believe it has come.”
In May, US President Donald Trump announced a temporary suspension of sanctions placed on Syria for 180 days.
They applied to a raft of measures under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which came into force in 2019 affecting the country’s energy, financial and construction industries.
While Trump can extend the pauses on sanctions, new legislation is required to curb them permanently, ending uncertainty about Syria’s economic future.
Shaheen and Wilson intend to do so via the upcoming annual National Defense Authorization Act, adding legislation to the bill that relates to foreign and military policy.
The lifting of sanctions on Syria previously met with some resistance in Congress, with Republican Sen. Jim Risch, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, saying in February: “Too much (US) engagement too soon could create more security dilemmas, but no or too little engagement could give Russia and Iran the ability to wield substantial influence again and also signal the US has no interest, which would be an incorrect assumption.”
However, in April he wrote a letter with Shaheen, the most senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying the federal government should “remove barriers to expanded engagement with the Syrian interim government.”
Trump met Al-Sharaa in May in Saudi Arabia, calling him a “fighter” and a “tough guy” with a “very strong past.” Al-Sharaa is expected to address the UN General Assembly in New York next month.
