US President Donald Trump meets with Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, left, and with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 14, 2025.

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When US President Donald Trump met with Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, the encounter went beyond the “hello” the White House had told reporters to expect.

Trump and Sharaa spoke behind closed doors for more than 30 minutes in a discussion that included Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was hosting Trump at the time, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Afterward, the crown prince, Trump and Sharaa posed for pictures that gave the meeting a sense of history and legitimacy, smiling broadly together. It was a striking image, given that no American president had met a Syrian leader in 25 years, and even more so because Sharaa, a former Al Qaeda militant, is still designated as a terrorist by the US government.

The meeting represented the most dramatic moment so far in Trump’s ongoing visit to the Middle East, which took him to Qatar later on Wednesday and will conclude in the United Arab Emirates.

The encounter was the icing on the cake for supporters of deeper US engagement with Syria under Sharaa’s rule who argue that US policy is key to rebuilding the country as it emerges from a 14-year civil war. The reevaluation of the relationship between the two countries began in December after brutal former dictator Bashar Assad was overthrown and Sharaa became the nation’s new leader.

Leading American allies in the Middle East have been pushing Washington to lift US sanctions covering Syria that have made it hard for them to send aid and court business there. The group includes Qatar — which is also working to give the president a $400 million jet, a proposed gift that has become a major scandal in the United States.

On Tuesday, Trump announced he would cease sanctions to give Syria “a chance at greatness,” a win for the lobbying campaign. “There is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilising the country and keeping peace,” he said.

But the US’s closest traditional partner in the region — Israel — had opposed the idea. And some hard-line national security figures in the Trump administration have sought to slow US engagement with Sharaa.

Many foreign policy watchers are now wondering if Trump’s Syria shift shows Israel (and some of its hawkish allies in Washington) meaningfully losing influence, particularly as the president embraces Arab leaders with whom he has ties on both public policy and private business.

Trump himself suggests he represents a positive break with the past — using his speech in Riyadh to decry “interventionists” — and several regional and US officials have told HuffPost they see the administration as more balanced than past counterparts.

Still, the details of the Syria maneuver — and what sources expect next — offer a more complex picture of the current push-pull between policy circles, including within the Trump........

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