Summary
- Donald Trump will meet the Syrian interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia this morning
- The brief meeting comes after the US lifted sanctions on Syria – Trump said the move is designed to “give them a chance at greatness”
- The meeting was a last-minute addition to Trump’s schedule, and will be more like a “hello”, reports our North America editor Sarah Smith from Riyadh
- In Syria, people came onto the streets to cheer the news – our correspondent Lina Sinjab was in Damascus to hear the celebratory gunfire
- After his meetings in Riyadh this morning, Trump will head to Qatar on the next stop of his four-day Middle East visit
- On Tuesday, he and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman signed a $142bn (£107bn) defence agreement
Joyous Syrians say sanctions being lifted an ‘indescribable feeling’
The US government has imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Syria for decades, affecting things from aid to finances.
There were spontaneous and joyous public celebrations in the streets of the capital Damascus yesterday, after Donald Trump said yesterday they will be lifted.
Many Syrians have expressed hope that their country will now have the chance to prosper. “The feeling is indescribable,” Tarik Naamo tells the AFP news agency.
Huda Qusar says it’ll be “great for our country”, adding that “construction will return, the refugees will return, everyone will return, the prices will drop”. The just need patience, she says.
“Thank God the sanctions have been lifted so we can finally live the way we used to or even better than before,” Ahmad Asma says. “And finally we can start enjoying ourselves.”
Only last year, the US offered a $10m reward for the Syrian leader’s arrest
Transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa is currently in charge of Syria, formally taking over a month after the rapid collapse of the Assad regime in December.
His forces led the coalition of militant groups in a swift campaign which toppled the brutal regime which ruled the war-torn nation for decades.
Previously, he was an al-Qaeda commander, but has since severed ties with the group. When he stepped into the role, al-Sharaa stressed that Syria’s new government faced a “heavy task and a great responsibility”.
After Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow, 90% of Syria’s population were left under the poverty line – and some violence continued with clashes between Islamist armed factions, security forces and fighters from the Druze religious minority.
There was also mass killings of hundreds of civilians from minority Alawite community in the western coastal region in March, during clashes between the new security forces and Assad loyalists.
The US move to lift sanctions yesterday has been met with positivity in Syria – and the meeting between al-Sharaa and US President Donald Trump will be the first time US and Syrian leaders have met since 2000.
It may represent a further thawing in relations between the two countries – after the US scrapped a $10m (£7.9m) reward for the arrest of al-Sharaa in December, following diplomatic meetings.
Trump’s meeting with Syria’s leader may be more of a ‘hello’
Today’s meeting between Donald Trump and Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa was a last-minute addition to Donald Trump’s schedule.
And it may be very brief – the White House said the US president had agreed to say “hello” to the new Syrian leader, who once led a branch of al-Qaeda but who has severed ties with jihadist group.
He will then board Air Force One to fly to Qatar for further meetings, where the royal family are offering to give him a much newer and more luxurious plane to use for official travel.
It’s a present which has provoked huge controversy back in America among people – who wonder what the Qataris will want in return.
Trump’s deal-making tour of the Middle East continues
Donald Trump has another busy day of meetings and (possible) deal-making in the Middle East today.
The US president is in Saudi Arabia this morning, where he is due to meet interim Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa. The meeting comes after Trump announced yesterday that he will lift sanctions imposed during former dictator Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
Trump will then jet off to Doha on Air Force One for the second leg of his four-day trip, where he’s expected to meet the Emir of Qatar.
Yesterday, Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shared warm words and talked up the growing strength of the US-Saudi relationship. They also signed commercial agreements worth more than $600bn (£453bn), including a massive $142bn (£107bn) arms deal.
We’ll be following Trump’s movements throughout the day, with our teams in the Middle East bringing you all the latest news and analysis.
Trump completes first day of Middle East visit with Saudi arms deal
It’s been a big day for US-Saudi Arabia relations, with President Donald Trump in the Saudi capital Riyadh to kick off his first foreign visit since taking office for a second time.
What happened today?
Following a VIP-packed lunch, Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman signed several agreements, including a $142bn (£107bn) arms deal.
In an expansive hour-long speech later in the day, the US president heaped praise on the crown prince, saying the US and Saudi Arabia were taking steps to make their relationship “more powerful than ever before”.
He also announced that the US would remove sanctions from Syria in order to give the country “a chance at greatness”.
Trump added that he wanted to strike a deal with Iran, but warned the country’s leaders that if they rejected his “olive branch” he would “inflict massive, maximum pressure”.
And on the war in Gaza, the US president said the civilian population “deserve a much better future”. As he was speaking, reports came in that an Israeli air strike had killed at least 16 people and injured dozens at a hospital in Khan Younis.
Mohammed bin Salman, in contrast, spoke comparatively little at the event – but said the US and Saudi Arabia share “deep economic relations”, and would “continue to build” together.
What’s to come?
Trump will continue his four-day tour of the Middle East with visits to Qatar on Wednesday and the UAE on Friday – he is also expected to meet the Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia tomorrow
We’re pausing our live coverage for now, but you can continue to follow the latest updates in our news story. Join us back here tomorrow for day two.
Celebratory gunfire in Damascus as Trump announces end to sanctions
Celebratory gunfire is heard in the capital Damascus tonight as Syrians feel a new chapter is opening – filled with opportunities for the war-ravaged country.
It’s a moment that Syria has been waiting for.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been impacted by sanctions that have crippled the economy.
And now, with a new government in place after the toppling of the Assad regime which had left 90% of the population under the poverty line, new President Ahmad al-Sharaa needs sanctions to be lifted to be able to get the economy moving.
Many businesses and international donors want to chip in to help get funds and business deals flowing, but so far have been stopped by the sanctions.
No funds can be cleared to reach Syria while they’re in place, as the Central Bank of Syria that would receive any transaction is also operating under sanctions.
It is a sigh of relief for Syrians inside the country who want to run their businesses as normal, but also for the millions stranded as refugees who have nowhere to come back to – as their homes were destroyed by Assad’s bombardments.
Rebuilding Syria needs international support – and now it will be easier to get it moving.
Decision to lift sanctions marks ‘new start’ for Syria, foreign minister says
Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani says the decision to remove US sanctions marks a “new start” in his country’s path to reconstruction.
“Thanks to the positions of our brothers, led by Saudi Arabia, we are turning a new page toward a future worthy of the Syrian people and their history,” he writes in a post on X.
Thousands of Nvidia chips to be sent to Saudi Arabia
US chip giant Nvidia and Saudi AI startup Humain have announced a partnership that will see 18,000 Nvidia chips help power the artificial intelligence (AI) aspirations of Saudi Arabia.
The announcement coincides with US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where he signed a $142bn (£107bn) defence agreement with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Together, Nvidia and Humain – a company owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund that was launched on Monday with the purpose of developing and managing AI technologies – say they will build AI factories in Saudi Arabia with up to 500 megawatts of capacity.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia have been investing billions of dollars into tech and AI sectors as they try to diversify their economies away from oil.
Last week, the Trump administration scrapped Biden-era chip regulations that had placed restrictions on exports of advanced US chips to more than 120 countries – including the Gulf states.
Trump to meet Syrian leader tomorrow – White House official
We’ve just heard from Trump that he will remove sanctions on Syria, saying he wants to give the country “a chance at greatness”.
Shortly before he started speaking, a White House official said Trump had agreed to “say hello” to the Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who is also going to be in Saudi Arabia tomorrow.
A taste of home?
The US delegation is in town and their Saudi hosts in Riyadh are pulling out all the stops for them – including this mobile McDonald’s truck (McDonald’s has hundreds of branches in Saudi).
The BBC team there tells us they’ve scoped it out.
It’s not the easiest place to get vegetarian food, and the chips went down well, one of our producers tells us.
Trump is reported to be a fan of the US fast food chain, and he even donned an apron and served customers at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania during his election campaign.
US-Saudi arms deal a measure of changing relationship
What the White House calls “the largest defence sales agreement in history” is also a measure of the changing relationship between Washington and Riyadh.
Weapons deals have long been part of this strategic partnership. But in 2021 the Biden’s administration stopped the sale of offensive weapons over Riyadh’s role in the destructive war unleashed in neighbouring Yemen.
This alliance had already been strained by the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi; a US intelligence report later found that the killing was approved by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which he denied.
Relations slowly improved even under President Biden who, as a presidential candidate in 2019, had vowed to turn the kingdom into a pariah state. The sale of offensive weapons was resumed last year.
And there was a push to finalise a defence pact which included a normalisation of relations between the kingdom and Israel.
That’s not on the agenda now as the Gaza war grinds on.
But today President Trump was overhead saying to the crown prince: “I really believe we like each other a lot.”
Five key takeaways from Trump’s speech in Riyadh
After speaking for almost an hour, Trump has now wrapped up his remarks – the first public comments we’ve heard from him since he arrived in Riyadh earlier today.
Here’s what he said:
- The US president announced he was removing sanctions from Syria, in order to give the country “a chance at greatness”
- He also said he wanted to strike a deal with Iran, but warned the country’s leaders that if they reject his “olive branch” he would “inflict massive, maximum pressure” and “drive” Tehran’s oil exports to zero
- Trump said he hoped Saudi Arabia would join the Abraham Accords – the deals he brokered between Israel and other Gulf countries during his first administration
- The US and Saudi are taking steps today to make their relationship “more powerful than ever before”, Trump said, following the signing of a $142bn arms deal
- Addressing the Israel-Gaza war, he said the people of Gaza “deserve a much better future”, but added that cannot happen as long as their leaders “choose to kidnap, torture and target” innocent people