Lebanon's Aoun Brings Hezbollah Disarmament Plan to White House Meeting With Trump

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is set to meet Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday, July 21, carrying a written proposal on how to disarm Hezbollah and get Israeli troops out of southern Lebanon. It's the first visit to Washington by a Lebanese head of state since Michel Sleiman met Barack Obama in 2009, according to Al Jazeera.

Aoun arrived at Joint Base Andrews on Saturday, July 18, with First Lady Naima Aoun, according to the Lebanese presidency. He met Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday before the Trump sit-down.

Rubio praised Beirut's "determined efforts to reclaim Lebanon's sovereignty, disarm Hezbollah and dismantle its terrorist infrastructure and move towards peace," according to a State Department statement cited by Al Jazeera. That's Washington's framing. Hezbollah has its own, and it's the opposite: the group has firmly rejected the Lebanese government's direct talks with Israel and any effort to strip it of weapons, according to the South China Morning Post.

What Aoun wants from Trump

A Lebanese official told Reuters that Aoun would hand Trump a written plan for dismantling Hezbollah's arsenal. The official said Aoun believes Trump is the only leader with enough leverage over Israel to force a troop withdrawal, a point both the South China Morning Post and Al Jazeera reported identically, citing the same Reuters account.

Before leaving Beirut, Aoun said he would press Trump to "exert the necessary pressure on Israel" to implement the June 26 framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel. That US-brokered deal calls for Hezbollah's disarmament, a phased Israeli withdrawal, and a path toward normalized relations between the two countries, per Reuters reporting carried by both outlets.

Aoun, 62, ran Lebanon's army before winning the presidency last year. Washington welcomed his election, according to the South China Morning Post, which framed him as the US-aligned figure now trying to convert that goodwill into leverage over Israel.

The gap nobody's papering over

Diplomatic sources told Lebanon's Al Jadeed television, as reported by Israel Hayom, that there are currently no signs the two sides' positions are converging. Israel has shown no willingness to leave sites it considers strategically important and has tied any further movement to security guarantees and completion of Hezbollah's disarmament first.

That's the core standoff. Lebanon wants withdrawal now, or at least a firm timeline, as leverage to sell disarmament domestically. Israel wants disarmament locked down before it gives up ground it holds for security reasons. Both positions are coherent. Neither side has publicly blinked.

Israeli forces fought a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon and have said withdrawal without a credible, verified end to Hezbollah's weapons stockpile resets the clock to the next war. The question is whether "completion of disarmament" becomes a moving goalpost that never gets satisfied, which is exactly what Lebanese officials worry about.

There's a possible technical fix floating around. Sky News Arabia reported that Italy proposed working with the US on pilot withdrawal zones in southern Lebanon, a mechanism meant to verify that areas Israel leaves are actually free of Hezbollah weapons, according to Israel Hayom. A diplomatic source told Israel Hayom that Lebanon has agreed to let any European country take part in that verification mechanism, and that deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces in the village of Froun would follow "operational measures" based on a document the Lebanese military already presented.

What's unresolved going into Tuesday

Aoun will also meet with US senators and other administration officials during the trip, according to Al Jazeera. But the meeting with Trump is the headline event because, per the Lebanese official's own framing to Reuters, Trump is viewed in Beirut as the only actor with real leverage on Israel.

None of the three accounts report that Israel has agreed to any withdrawal timeline, or that Hezbollah has shown any sign of accepting disarmament terms it has already publicly rejected. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese remain displaced from Israeli strikes months after the last round of fighting, a humanitarian fact Al Jazeera notes complicates Beirut's ability to reassert control over its own south.

The open question after Tuesday's meeting: does Trump extract any concrete Israeli commitment, or does this become another Washington photo-op that changes nothing on the ground in Froun or anywhere else along the Blue Line. Lebanon's diplomatic sources, per Israel Hayom, are already signaling low expectations.