President Trump met Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, and announced the United States would remove Syria from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, a designation the country has carried since 1979. The move caps a rapid diplomatic thaw and positions Syria as a possible alternative route for Gulf energy exports, one that could reduce Iran's leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.
The announcement landed alongside a blunt message to the Syrian leader. Trump told al-Sharaa that American companies stand ready to pour money into a country still rebuilding from years of civil war.
As The Telegraph reported, the strategic calculus is straightforward: Syria sits on the Mediterranean, connected by land to some of the world's largest oil-producing nations. Pipeline projects under consideration could link Gulf producers such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar directly to Syrian ports at Baniyas and Latakia, giving tankers a route to Europe that never passes within range of Iranian missiles.
The speed of the diplomatic reversal is worth pausing on. Al-Sharaa once had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. His group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, fought against Bashar al-Assad's regime, and against Russian troops backing Assad. Now the same man sat across from an American president who called him "fantastic."
Trump did not hedge his praise:
"We have US companies ready to invest in Syria and help make your country greater and more prosperous than ever before."
He described al-Sharaa as having done a "great job" bringing together a country that was "a real mess, very disjointed."
The formal machinery has been moving for months. The U.S. lifted sanctions on Syria last year. Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked the foreign terrorist organization designation for al-Nusrah Front/Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, effective in late June, as AP News reported. Trump signed an executive order on June 30 ending many remaining U.S. economic sanctions, following a promise he made to al-Sharaa during a meeting in Saudi Arabia in May.
Rubio framed the moves as part of a broader vision. "This FTO revocation is an important step in fulfilling President Trump's vision of a stable, unified, and peaceful Syria," he said.
The energy angle gives the Syria deal a dimension that goes well beyond diplomatic symbolism. Iran fired at vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, an escalation that annulled a ceasefire and reminded every Gulf oil exporter how vulnerable their primary shipping lane remains. Trump, characteristically direct, called Iran "scum."
Roughly 4 million barrels of oil per day once moved through the region before war disrupted flows. Iraq alone has been trucking approximately 200,000 barrels per day through Syria. The geography makes the case on its own: a pipeline from the Gulf to Syria's Mediterranean coast would bypass Hormuz entirely, denying Tehran its primary point of economic coercion.
Mouayad Albonni, a senior analyst at Karam Shaar Advisory, a firm specializing in Syria's economy, acknowledged the logic but cautioned against oversimplification:
"In terms of geography, if you isolate all the risk factors, Syria could be a possibility to consider as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, for sure."
But he added a harder truth:
"But this is not as straightforward as Trump, or even the Syrian government, likes to portray. Still, it's a good opportunity for Syria to build on."
The risks are real. Terror groups still operate inside Syria. An Iraqi fuel tanker was attacked on a highway in northern Syria in early June. And as Albonni noted, Syria borders Israel and sits at the intersection of tensions between Turkey and Israel, and Israel and Iran. Stability is not guaranteed, it is an aspiration.
American capital is not waiting for the risks to clear. Chevron signed a deal in February with Syria's state-owned petroleum company to develop the country's first offshore oil and gas field. A consortium of Saudi and U.S. firms has formed for oil and gas exploration in north-east Syria. The U.S. government issued an investor guide for Syria with specific guidance for the oil, gas, electricity, and banking sectors.
Syria's proven oil reserves stand at 2.5 billion barrels. Some estimates, including offshore areas, run as high as 27 billion barrels. Those numbers explain why multiple players are circling.
Russia, too, is staking its claim. A commercial logistics hub at the port of Tartus is expected to become operational in mid-July, dedicated to handling Russian goods and linking Syria's coast to Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Moscow fought to keep Assad in power, and even with Assad gone, Russia appears determined to maintain its foothold. That creates a complicated picture for American investors and policymakers alike, one where a NATO ally's summit produces a deal that could put U.S. and Russian commercial interests in uncomfortably close proximity on the same coastline.
The broader energy picture adds urgency. China is positioned to benefit as the world's biggest clean energy exporter amid the global transition to green energy. For the United States, locking in fossil-fuel infrastructure through Syria would serve as both a hedge against Iranian aggression and a counterweight to Beijing's growing energy influence.
The Syria delisting has drawn something rare in Washington: bipartisan backing. The Washington Examiner reported that a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Democratic Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to Secretary Rubio supporting Syria's removal from the list. Syria currently sits alongside only Cuba, North Korea, and Iran on the State Sponsors of Terrorism roster.
That bipartisan support matters, particularly in a Congress where Republican margins remain thin and internal disagreements have tested party unity. On Syria, at least, the White House found willing partners on both sides of the aisle.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, dining with Trump at the White House, agreed that the leadership change in Syria "presents opportunities for stability, for security and eventually for peace." That endorsement carries weight, given Israel's direct security interests on Syria's southern border.
Still, some critics argue tougher conditions should have been imposed before removal. Breitbart noted that Middle East Institute analyst Charles Lister described the announcement as something Trump wanted to deliver personally alongside al-Sharaa: "Everything I've heard is that it is finally a done deal in the last two or three weeks and, in Trump style, he'd like to announce it... with Sharaa."
The showmanship is vintage Trump. But the substance, removing a 47-year-old terrorism designation, opening energy corridors, and drawing American capital into a country most administrations treated as untouchable, is not just theater. It is a bet that engagement will produce better outcomes than isolation did.
The deal raises questions that no summit handshake can answer. Which terror groups still operate inside Syria, and what capacity do they retain to disrupt pipelines or attack convoys? Who carried out the June attack on the Iraqi fuel tanker in northern Syria? What specific conditions, if any, did the U.S. attach to Syria's removal from the terrorism list?
Albonni put the core tension plainly:
"You need to be really sure that Syria, which borders Israel and is subject to tensions between Turkey and Israel, and Israel and Iran, will be stable enough that it's a safe route."
He also noted that the crisis in Hormuz, not the attractiveness of Syria's market, is what forced exporters to look at Syria as a possible hub. That distinction matters. Syria is not being chosen on merit alone. It is being chosen because Iran made the alternative intolerable.
This administration has shown a willingness to cut deals that break through Washington gridlock when the strategic logic demands it. The Syria play fits that pattern, high risk, high reward, and a clear-eyed recognition that waiting for perfect conditions means waiting forever.
Trump's approach to institutional obstacles has always been to go around them rather than through them. Bypassing Hormuz through Syria is the geopolitical version of the same instinct.
Whether Syria can actually deliver on the promise, whether pipelines get built, whether security holds, whether American companies earn returns instead of writing off losses, remains to be seen. The geography is right. The politics are aligned, for now. The ground truth is another matter entirely.
Iran spent years turning the Strait of Hormuz into a weapon. If Trump's Syria bet pays off, Tehran may discover that the world found a way around it, and that the leverage it assumed was permanent was anything but.