President Donald Trump announced Tuesday during his trip to the Middle East that his administration would lift U.S. sanctions on Syria.
Since the shock collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria late last year, the United States and broader international community have debated whether sanctions on Syria should be removed. After years of comprehensive restrictions, Syria’s people and economy could benefit dramatically from sanctions relief. If the administration follows through with Trump’s announcement, U.S. and international exporters, financial institutions and other service providers should see significant new opportunities from the reduced restrictions.
While details about the administration’s plan for removing sanctions on Syria are not yet clear, here are some of the key steps that the administration may need to take to realize the President’s announcement.
Existing Comprehensive Sanctions on Syria
Syria is currently subject to comprehensive U.S. sanctions and export controls. The United States designated Syria as a State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) in 1979 and has targeted Syria with successive rounds of extensive economic sanctions and related export controls for decades. These sanctions have generally been based on the malign conduct of the governments of Hafez and Bashar al-Assad, including their support for terrorist organizations, regional destabilization, weapons of mass destruction proliferation and use, corruption and human rights abuses, particularly following Syria’s 2011 descent into civil war.
There are also hundreds of sanctioned individuals and entities in Syria, notably including the group that toppled Assad, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS is designated as both a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) and a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).
Notwithstanding the broad restrictions on transactions related to Syria, the United States does authorize some limited activities, such as medicine and food exports, transactions involving certain areas of northern Syria and certain support for nongovernmental organizations, subject to certain conditions. Following Assad’s fall, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued General License No. 24, which authorized transactions with Syrian governing institutions and certain energy- and remittance-related activities.
But the general comprehensive restrictions on dealings with Syria have remained in place.
Discretionary Sanctions
Certain statutes, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), grant the President broad power in the establishment and rescission of economic sanctions programs. A number of Syria sanctions are based on such discretionary authorities, so it would be relatively straightforward for the administration to remove them. These include a number of restrictions imposed due to the Assad regimes’ conduct during the civil war since 2011 (e.g., Executive Order 13582). However, to the extent that these sanctions overlap with other statutorily required prohibitions, additional steps would be needed to fully remove the restrictions.
Syria also includes a number of individuals and entities designated as SDGTs under Executive Order 13224. This includes HTS, which has played a leading role in administering Syria since Assad’s fall. While the President has the authority to delist SDGTs, HTS is also subject to sanctions by the United Nations and other U.S. partners. It is further separately designated as an FTO by the State Department. As such, if the sanctions relief were to include de-designating HTS as an SDGT, additional steps and international coordination should be expected to give effect to the delisting.
Statutorily Required Sanctions and Export Controls
In addition to discretionary sanctions, a number of restrictions on Syria are also required by statute and additional steps are required to remove them. These include the following:
- The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 (SAA) is the statutory basis for extensive export controls on Syria set forth at Section 746.9 of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The SAA (originally implemented through Executive Order 13338) requires that the President prohibit the export to Syria of any items on the U.S. Munitions List and the Commerce Control List, in addition to the imposition of two other sanctions from a menu of options. The President has the authority to waive certain requirements based on a national security interest determination, but these restrictions broadly remain in place. To terminate the law’s requirements, the President would need to certify to Congress that he has made a number of determinations regarding the Government of Syria, including that it does not allow terrorist groups to maintain facilities in areas under its control and that it has terminated its weapons of mass destruction programs. In addition to the factual questions that would need to be addressed to meet these certification requirements (including the fact that HTS is itself a designated terrorist organization), the U.S. Government would need to grapple with what it considers the Government of Syria for purposes of the statute.
- The Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 (ITRSHRA) likewise requires certain Syria sanctions focused on the former government’s human rights abuses. The law provides a national security interest waiver authority to overcome its requirements, and a suspension authority based on government transition, but the broad termination of these sanctions would require certification by the President of a number of conditions, including that the government is democratically elected or legitimately transitional; that all political prisoners have been released; that a number of other abuses have ceased; that terrorists do not maintain facilities in areas under government control; and that weapons of mass destruction programs have terminated. Here again, in addition to the core factual questions, HTS’s current designation as a terrorist organization and the U.S. Government’s ambiguous recognition posture toward a Government of Syria add to the complexity and would need to be addressed for the administration to make the certification.
- The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 requires a number of sanctions against persons engaging in specified activities, including identified transactions with the Government of Syria and certain military and paramilitary forces, certain transactions benefiting the Government of Syria’s energy production and specified transactions involving aircraft and engineering services for the Government of Syria. The law includes waiver authorities based on national security interest and to address humanitarian need. However, broad suspension of the law’s provisions (for renewable 180-day periods) requires determination by the President that a number of conditions are met, including related to the protection of civilians, humanitarian access, the safe and dignified return of displaced populations, and war crimes accountability. To suspend these sanctions requirements, the administration will need to address these factual conditions and, as with the statutes mentioned above, grapple with how it defines the Government of Syria for purposes of the determination required.
Foreign Terrorist Organization Designation
An additional consideration in lifting sanctions and other restrictions on Syria is the State Department’s existing FTO designation of HTS. That makes it a crime to knowingly provide the group with material support, among other things. The Secretary of State is authorized to revoke HTS’s FTO designation under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and he is required to upon a finding that the circumstances that were the basis for HTS’s designation have changed or that U.S. national security warrants the revocation. As a result, if the administration intends to remove restrictions related to HTS, it would likely also take this additional step.
State Sponsor of Terrorism
Finally, Syria’s designation as an SST is based upon factors in several different laws that impose a number of restrictions, particularly export controls. Rescission of the designation would involve certification to Congress that a list of conditions have been met. These include that there has been a fundamental change in the government’s leadership; that it is not supporting terrorism; and that it has not provided any support for acts of terrorism during the preceding six months. As with several of the requirements identified above, the administration will need to grapple with the factual circumstances on the ground in Syria to be able to revoke the designation. Steps to implement regulatory changes in existing export controls (e.g., removing Syria from the list of terrorist supporting countries and related controls in the EAR), likely would also flow from such a de-designation.
Looking Forward
If the Trump administration does move forward with broadly lifting sanctions and related export controls on Syria, it would likely have a number of steps to take to address some of the complexities in the existing sanctions regime. The question of sequencing may be of particular importance, as HTS’s designation as a terrorist organization likely would create particular challenges in overcoming several statutory requirements.
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