When President Donald Trump announced in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday that he would lift all sanctions on Syria, the decision took many in the region by surprise.
It also caught some in his own administration off guard.
In Washington, senior officials at the State Department and Treasury Department scrambled to understand how to cancel the sanctions, many of which have been in place for decades, according to four US officials familiar with the matter.
The White House had issued no memorandum or directive to State or Treasury sanctions officials to prepare for the unwinding and didn’t alert them that the president’s announcement was imminent, one senior US official told Reuters.
After the announcement, officials were confused about exactly how the administration would unwind the layers of sanctions, which ones were being eased and when the White House wanted to begin the process.
By the time Trump met interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, officials at State and Treasury were still unsure how to proceed, the senior official said.
“Everyone is trying to figure out how to implement it,” said one US official in reference to the president’s announcement.
