WSJ: Syria's interim leader seeks Trump meeting on easing sanctions, rebuilding country

Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa is trying to meet with President Trump to share a vision of a Marshall Plan-style reconstruction in which American and other Western companies would win out over competition from China and other powers, Syrian government officials said. 

“The new Free Syria seeks to build a strong strategic relationship with the United States, based on mutual interests and partnership, including energy and other economic ties,” a senior official at Syria’s foreign ministry said, Caliber.Az reports, citing The Wall Street Journal.

The ministry official added: “Damascus hopes to become an important and influential ally to Washington during Syria’s next chapter.”

According to WSJ, Sharaa relayed a message to the White House seeking a meeting during Trump’s visit to the Gulf countries.

The administration in recent weeks gave Sharaa’s government a list of conditions that needed to be met before it would consider any easing of sanctions.

Ahmed al-Sharaa has quietly begun an effort to win American support to rebuild his war-torn country—rounding up militants, reaching out through intermediaries to Israel, and signaling his willingness to do deals that let U.S. oil-and-gas companies do business in the country.

Jonathan Bass, a pro-Trump Republican activist and CEO of Argent LNG, a natural gas company based in Louisiana, flew to Damascus last week to present Sharaa with a plan to develop the country’s energy resources with Western firms and a new U.S.-listed Syrian national oil company.

Analysts have warned that without American backing and access to the U.S. financial system, Syria is at risk of becoming a failed state that could again give rise to extremist groups and further destabilise the region. 

Sharaa needs Trump to remove American sanctions on Syria, many of them imposed in recent years to isolate former President Bashar al-Assad, a leader backed by Iran and Russia who used chemical weapons, torture and mass executions to try to break the uprising against him that began in 2011.

By Khagan Isayev