Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met with President Donald Trump at the White House today, becoming the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since Syria became independent from French colonial rule in 1946.
Shara is quiet entered The White House through a side entrance on Monday and remained inside for about an hour and a half. After his departure, he was greeted by a crowd of several hundred supporters, many waving Syrian flags. Neither the White House nor Sharaa's office made an immediate public statement about the meeting, and no details had emerged at press time.
The stakes for the visit were high as former al-Qaeda officer and wanted terrorist Sharaa sought to convince the Western world that he could complete the transition to a peaceful, inclusive and credible democracy.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-Fla.) optimistically set the stage for a meeting between Trump and Sharaa. statement about his meeting with the Syrian leader on Sunday evening.
“Last night, the new President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and I broke bread. We had a long and serious conversation about how to build a future for the people of Syria without war, ISIS and extremism,” Mast said Monday morning.
“He and I are two former soldiers and two former enemies. I asked him directly: 'Why are we no longer enemies?'[sic]”,” Mast said. His answer was that he wished to “be free from the past and have a noble aspiration for his people and his country and to become a great ally of the United States of America.”
The mast is a US Army award. veteran who lost both legs while working as a bomb disposal expert in Afghanistan during the War on Terror. Sharaa is former al-Qaeda operative who was captured during the fighting against American troops in Iraq.
Mast was confident that Sharaa would “formally join the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS” after meeting with Trump – an important step in Sharaa's rehabilitation from jihadist to statesman, given that Sharaa worked under ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during the al-Qaeda era and was invited to join the Islamic State when Baghdadi founded the organization.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who also met with Sharaa on Sunday, also expressed a vote of confidence in Syria's interim president, calling on Congress to permanently lift sanctions.
“A free, united and prosperous Syria is the greatest opportunity since the end of the Cold War. We must give Syria a chance and achieve the COMPLETE and COMPLETE abolition of Caesar,” Wilson. wrote on X.
Caesar Civilian Protection Act of 2019 imposed tough sanctions against the regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad for violating the human rights of its citizens. Assad was overthrown in December 2024 by a coalition of rebel and jihadist groups led by Sharaa. President Trump has lifted and suspended as many sanctions as possible, decree in July.
Rep. Mast was one of the congressional representatives. against repeal the Caesar Act, partly at the insistence of the Israeli government, which intervened to protect the Druze minority from attacks by Bedouin Muslims and Shara'a government security forces in July.
Ministry of Finance announced On Monday, it said it had suspended all Caesar Act sanctions for 180 days, with the exception of “certain transactions involving the Russian and Iranian governments.”
The Treasury Department said lifting sanctions would fulfill President Trump's promise to give Syria a “chance for greatness.”
“The U.S. government has adopted new policies and regulatory positions to encourage U.S. businesses and banks, the international community, the Syrian people, and regional partners to contribute to the stability of Syria by denying resources to harmful actors,” the statement said.
The Treasury waiver was not the complete and permanent lifting of sanctions that Sharaa wanted and that only Congress could implement. The new Syrian government fears that international investors will be reluctant to take on big risks in rebuilding the country while Caesar Act sanctions are only temporarily lifted.
