US Formally Removes Syria From State Sponsors of Terrorism List After 47 Years

The State Department on Monday removed Syria from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, ending a designation the country had carried since 1979, according to a Treasury Department notice cited by the NY Post and confirmed by Xinhua News Agency, The Media Line, and JNS.

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said the action came "in line with President Trump's promise to deliver sanctions relief to Syria," according to NAMPA. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement quoted by JNS that the move recognized "the positive actions taken and further commitments by the Syrian government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa to fully distance Syria from acts of international terrorism."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed it as an economic play. "Today's action will help foster additional investment in Syria to promote political and economic stability," he said, according to both the NY Post and leadership.ng.

A 45-day clock, then liftoff

The decision wasn't a surprise. Trump notified Congress of his intent to rescind the designation in July, triggering a mandatory 45-day review period that expired this week, JNS reported. Newsweek noted Trump had already floated the move publicly after meeting Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the NATO summit in Turkey, telling reporters at the time: "I think I will, yeah. Why wouldn't I? He's done a great job."

Alongside the terrorism-sponsor designation, the State Department also revoked Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham's status as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization, and Treasury pulled the group off its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list, according to Türkiye Today and Xinhua. HTS, formerly known as the al-Nusrah Front, was al-Sharaa's own organization before he broke from al-Qaeda and eventually turned it against ISIS during Syria's civil war.

Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq, called it "another historic milestone." He said in a statement carried by JNS that "capital can replace conflict, enterprise can replace isolation and commerce can continue to triumph over chaos."

Who's left on the list

Syria's removal leaves just three countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism: Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, according to The Media Line and Newsweek. Iran now holds the longest uninterrupted designation, dating to 1984 in the aftermath of the 1979 hostage crisis. Newsweek's rundown of the list's history notes Libya came off in 2006, Iraq was removed and re-added before its final delisting in 2004, and Sudan exited in 2020 after joining the Abraham Accords.

The designation had barred Syria from most U.S. foreign assistance, defense exports, and certain financial transactions since Hafez al-Assad's government worked with terrorist groups, JNS reported. It stayed in place through five decades of Assad family rule and outlived the broader U.S. sanctions program on Syria, which the Trump administration had already wound down in July 2025.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani told Reuters, as reported by The Media Line, that the delisting clears the last real obstacle to foreign capital. "There is no longer any obstacle to investment, doing business and rebuilding economic life in Syria," he said.

The unresolved part of the story

Türkiye Today's coverage notes that the delisting came just days after Israeli aircraft carried out eight airstrikes on Aug. 18 targeting the runway at the Abu al-Duhur Military Airbase in Idlib province, damaging its infrastructure. None of the other sources address that strike or whether it factored into the timing of Washington's decision. Israel's continued military activity inside Syria, even as the U.S. moves to fully rehabilitate Damascus economically and diplomatically, is a tension the administration hasn't publicly reconciled.

Leadership.ng also flagged a caveat Treasury itself included in its announcement: delisting Syria "does not change Treasury's posture with regards to countering global terrorism" and the department says it remains committed to holding "bad actors in Syria accountable." That hedge is worth watching, given al-Sharaa's history running an al-Qaeda affiliate before rebranding HTS and eventually taking power after Assad's fall in December 2024.

Skepticism about al-Sharaa isn't unreasonable. A man who once led a U.S.-designated terrorist organization is now being handed the keys to Western investment and full diplomatic normalization based on roughly two years of stated behavior change, mostly measured by his own government's claims and Washington's assessment of them. Rubio's own statement leaned on Syria's "participation in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS" and operations against al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and Iran-aligned groups as evidence of a genuine break. But that's the U.S. government vouching for a former militant it now needs as a partner against Iran's remaining influence in the region.

Congress had its 45-day window to object and didn't block the move. The practical result: American banks and investors no longer face the legal exposure that kept them out of Syria even after broader sanctions relief last year. Whether al-Sharaa's government delivers the stability and reconstruction Rubio and Bessent are betting on is the open question the paperwork can't answer.