The US is planning to announce an easing of restrictions on providing humanitarian aid and other basic services such as electricity to Syria while still keeping crushing economic sanctions on the country in place, Reuters reported on Monday.
Reuters noted the "decision by the outgoing Biden administration will send a signal of goodwill to Syria's new Islamist rulers and aims to pave the way for improving tough living conditions in the war-ravaged country while treading cautiously and keeping US leverage in place."
Syria's new government, led by extremist militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is calling for the lifting of the US sanctions, which impoverished Syria and prevented reconstruction after the end of the Syria war in 2019.
Washington is so far refusing to lift sanctions, despite its longtime support for HTS and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (also known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani), a former deputy to slain ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Previously known as the Nusra Front, HTS was the official Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. The group enjoyed support from the US, Israel, Qatar, and Turkiye, which sought to use the group to topple the Syrian government led by former president Bashar al-Assad starting in 2011.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration approved the easing of restrictions over the weekend, saying the move authorizes the Treasury Department to issue waivers to aid groups and companies providing essentials such as water, electricity, and other humanitarian supplies.
The US-funded Syrian opposition group, the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), and other Syrian activists lobbied heavily for the US to impose the sanctions, claiming they would only hurt Assad and other top Syrian officials, not Syrian civilians.
Journalists and pundits who backed the regime change in Damascus are now pushing to lift the illegal, unilateral sanctions on Syria because they hurt ordinary civilians. I stand behind the message! But let's ask the tough question: why did they support these sanctions in the…
— Kevork Almassian🇸🇾🇦🇲 (@KevorkAlmassian) January 5, 2025
However, Syria expert Joshua Landis warned in Foreign Affairs in 2020 of the "pointless cruelty of Trump's new Syria sanctions" while noting that in the 1990s, similar "US sanctions killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis."
The economic devastation wrought by the sanctions caused a new wave of Syrians to flee the country after 2020 despite the war having ended.
