“Sanctions are a complicated bureaucratic knot to untangle. Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warned on X that “people in [Trump’s] own administration are trying to stop it or slow it down severely.” And a Syrian government minister tells Reason that a U.S. delegation has come with a set of “requests” for Syria to fulfill.
The Caesar Civilian Protection Act, passed after Assad had fought a civil war against rebels to a standstill, punishes foreign investment in reconstructing areas under the Syrian government’s control. There is also a general U.S. trade embargo on Syria passed by executive order. And Sharaa himself is a designated terrorist because of his past fighting for Al Qaeda, which he later violently turned against.”
https://reason.com/2025/05/20/will-trumps-order-to-lift-u-s-sanctions-on-syria-be-followed