The USA has removed Syria from its checklist of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT), marking one other main shift in Washington’s relationship with the nation following the autumn of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024 on the finish of a brutal 14-year civil battle.
“At the moment, Syria shakes off a darkish stain and tears away a painful chapter of its previous to embark on a path of improvement, reconstruction and rebuilding,” Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa stated in a speech on Tuesday.
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US President Donald Trump had introduced the deliberate removing in July, which had been in place since 1979. It took impact following a 45-day congressional evaluation.
The US “terrorism” designation had triggered restrictions on overseas help, defence exports, sure monetary transactions and the switch of some dual-use items – merchandise which may have army makes use of, as effectively.
It will possibly additionally trigger banks and corporations to be cautious of doing enterprise with a rustic due to the authorized and compliance dangers concerned. The removing of Syria leaves Cuba, Iran and North Korea as the one international locations presently on the US “terrorism blacklist”.
Why was Syria eliminated?
Syria had been on the SSOT checklist since 1979, when the federal government of Hafez al-Assad was accused by Washington of supporting armed teams against Israel.
The designation continued when his son, Bashar al-Assad, assumed energy in 2000 and lasted for the whole thing of his rule, which got here to an finish when he was overthrown in a lightning strike on Damascus by insurgent teams led by al-Sharaa in December 2024. Al-Assad and members of his household fled Syria and are presently below supervisory asylum in Moscow.
In July this yr, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated the choice to take away Syria from the checklist got here following “formal assurances” from the Syrian president that the nation won’t “assist acts of worldwide terrorism sooner or later”.
Washington has additionally praised cooperation between al-Sharaa’s authorities and the US towards the ISIL (ISIS) armed group, which had, at varied factors, seized management of swaths of Syrian territory between 2013 and 2019, in the course of the civil battle.
Al-Sharaa beforehand led the al-Nusra Entrance, an al-Qaeda affiliate, earlier than breaking ties in 2016.
The “terrorism-sponsor” designation had remained a serious impediment for potential traders in Syria even after Washington dismantled its broader Syria sanctions programme in 2025.
Rubio has stated lifting the designation will “unlock worldwide commerce and funding” and provides Syria an opportunity to rebuild.
Sina Azodi, assistant professor of Center East Politics at George Washington College, informed Al Jazeera that being faraway from the checklist brings “many advantages”.
“It’s going to make entry to the US-dominated worldwide monetary and banking system simpler,” Azodi stated. “All of those will assist commerce relations, funding and diplomatic relations extra engaging.”
Which international locations are nonetheless on the US ‘terrorism’ checklist, and why?
Iran
Iran has been designated a “state sponsor of terrorism” by the US since 1984, following the Iranian Islamic revolution and the deterioration of relations with Washington.
The US continues to accuse Tehran of supporting armed teams throughout the area, together with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Yemen’s Houthi group and quite a lot of teams in Iraq and Syria. The designation has led to the sanctioning of Iran’s authorities, monetary system, army and oil trade.
On Monday, the US introduced sweeping new economic sanctions on Tehran and entities in different international locations which the US says facilitate commerce with it, in a bid to isolate the nation from the worldwide economic system amid a diplomatic impasse in the course of the present US-Israeli battle on Iran.
Cuba
US relations with Cuba have remained fraught because the Cuban revolution in 1959, when Fidel Castro overthrew the US-friendly President Fulgencio Batista.
The nation was first positioned on the “sponsor of terrorism” checklist in 1982, with Washington accusing Havana of supporting armed revolutionary teams.
President Barack Obama eliminated Cuba from the checklist in 2015 throughout a short diplomatic thaw. Nevertheless, in the direction of the top of his first time period as US president, Trump restored the designation in January 2021.
The next Joe Biden administration introduced in January 2025 that it supposed to take away Cuba once more, saying there was no info supporting the SSOT designation. Nevertheless, Trump reversed that call after returning to workplace.
Since January 29, the Trump administration has additionally imposed a crippling gasoline blockade towards Cuba and threatened commerce tariffs towards any nation that exports gasoline to the island nation.
North Korea
North Korea was first positioned on the US SSOT checklist in 1988, largely due to its position within the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 in 1987, which killed all 115 folks on board.
Washington eliminated North Korea from the checklist in 2008 as a part of efforts to barter over its nuclear programme, however restored the designation in 2017 throughout Trump’s first time period.
It has remained topic to intensive US sanctions largely due to its nuclear and missile programmes, weapons proliferation, and different safety considerations.
Which different international locations face sanctions?
Along with its “state sponsor of terrorism” checklist, the US authorities has varied sanctions programmes in place towards international locations, firms and people.
Russia is closely sanctioned by the US for its battle in Ukraine. The US has resisted inserting Russia on the “terror checklist”, nonetheless, regardless of calls from some lawmakers because the Ukraine battle started in 2022.
Earlier this month, the US Senate handed a bundle that imposes as much as one hundred pc tariffs on main nations importing Russian oil and fuel. The measure, if handed by the Home of Representatives, would have an effect on international locations like China and India, that are key importers of Russian petroleum merchandise.
Within the US’s personal hemisphere, Venezuela has confronted intensive US sanctions, together with on its leaders and oil trade, most notably below Trump’s second time period.
In December, in a brand new spherical of sanctions, Washington focused 4 firms and their related oil tankers, allegedly concerned in transporting Venezuelan oil. Petroleum is Venezuela’s main export.
Trump defended the sweeping sanctions as a method of combating the unlawful drug commerce, although Venezuela exports virtually not one of the fentanyl that the administration has made a central focus of its crackdown.
In January 2026, former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his spouse Cilia Flores had been kidnapped in a US army operation, after longstanding tensions between Washington and Caracas lastly boiled over.
The Venezuelan presidency has since been stuffed by interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who has aligned the nation extra intently with US pursuits, which embody management over the nation’s oil trade. In April, the US lifted private sanctions on Rodriguez, who Trump has described as “a terrific particular person”.
The US additionally eased sanctions imposed on Venezuela’s central financial institution and has issued momentary sanctions aid within the type of waivers authorising US firms and people to conduct enterprise in some areas of Venezuela’s oil, mining and monetary sectors. These waivers may be cancelled at any time, nonetheless.
What impression does the ‘terror’ itemizing have on international locations?
In line with Cuba-based filmmaker and impartial journalist Ed Augustin, the designation “positively makes common folks’s lives worse” in Cuba.
“What it does is it contaminates, so to talk, the phrase Cuba within the world monetary system,” he informed Al Jazeera. “It turns Cuba right into a pariah.”
“It’s been very tough for Cuba to buy equipment and chemical substances to supply prescribed drugs due to over-compliance and since a variety of the businesses, even once they’re not primarily based within the US, refuse to promote to Cuba. So there’s an extraterritorial dimension to this.”
Final yr, impartial UN specialists expressed dismay when Cuba was put again on the checklist, saying it “constitutes a regressive step not just for bilateral relations between these two international locations, however most significantly for the human rights and well-being of the folks in Cuba, with probably the most devastating impression on susceptible teams, together with girls, kids, older individuals, and individuals with disabilities”.
UN specialists have additionally condemned the current oil blockade on the nation of roughly 11 million folks, saying designating Cuba as an “uncommon and extraordinary menace” to the US lacked credibility.
Syrian political analyst Ruslan Trad, a non-resident fellow on the Atlantic Council, stated the Trump administration’s “embrace” of al-Sharaa personally, “underscores that SSOT standing capabilities as a lot as a lever of bilateral relations and strategic signalling as a counterterrorism evaluation”.
“That political logic cuts each methods for these nonetheless listed. So, as a sensible upshot, the SSOT checklist capabilities much less as an goal terrorism registry and extra as a foreign-policy strain valve,” Trad informed Al Jazeera.
“For Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, the absence of that very same aid means continued isolation from mainstream world finance, even the place the unique rationale for designation [state support for terrorism] is, in Cuba’s case particularly, broadly contested as outdated,” he stated.
