US takes Syria off the state sponsor of terrorism list after 47 years

The United States removed Syria from its list of state sponsors of terrorism on Monday, ending a designation that had stood since 1979. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the step followed the mandatory 45-day notice to Congress that President Donald Trump filed on 8 July. The same announcement delisted Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, also known as the Nusrah Front, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organisation.

Rubio’s statement tied the decision to steps taken by President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government: joining the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in November, and operations against networks linked to ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and Iran-aligned groups. He said the two delistings remove the last major barriers to private investment and to Syria’s return to the ordinary banking system. Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani had told Reuters days earlier that Damascus saw the terrorism label as the final obstacle to rebuilding economic life.

Al-Sharaa posted his own thanks to Trump and called the decision historic. His government took Damascus in December 2024 after rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad. HTS, which al-Sharaa once led, had been al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria before it rebranded and fought other jihadist factions. Leaving that group on the terrorist list while talking to the man who ran it had become an awkward piece of legal architecture for banks and insurers.

Cuba, Iran and North Korea remain on the state-sponsor list. Syria’s listing dated to the Hafez al-Assad years, when Washington accused Damascus of backing militant groups. It survived the entire rule of his son. The June 2025 executive order that revoked the Syria sanctions programme and ended the related national emergency was the first large cut. Monday’s action is the second. A tri-seal advisory from Commerce, Treasury and State summarises the export-control and sanctions relief issued so far.

The timing is not accidental. On 23 August, Syrian, US and Israeli officials met in Jordan to lower the temperature after Israeli strikes inside Syria. On 25 August the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces announced they had dissolved into the national army, completing a merger that followed government advances in January. Those two files, Israel and the northeast, are the tests that investors will watch more closely than any communique.

Delisting does not by itself move money. Correspondent banks still decide whether a Syrian counterparty is worth the compliance cost. Insurance markets still price war risk. Reconstruction contracts still need a court system that foreign firms trust. What the list change does is remove a statutory bar that made many of those decisions automatic refusals.

It also creates a political fact in Washington. Members of Congress who opposed the July notification now have to argue for putting Syria back on the list, which is a harder lift than blocking a rescission. Critics will point to HTS’s origins and to unanswered questions about command over former jihadist units now wearing national uniforms. Supporters will point to the ISIS campaign and to the alternative, which is a sanctioned state sitting on a rebuilt army with no legal path to trade.

For Damascus the immediate prize is symbolic and practical at once. Al-Sharaa can tell domestic audiences that the country is no longer classed with Iran and North Korea. His finance ministry can start conversations with firms that were waiting for a clean legal line. Whether those conversations become steel, cement and power plants depends on security in the south and on whether the SDF merger holds in the north. The list is no longer the obstacle. The ground still is.