WASHINGTON (May 14, 2025)- President Donald Trump is on a Middle East tour. After meeting with Syria's new leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa earlier this week, Trump announced the end of U.S. sanctions on the war-torn country. According to the Wall Street Journal, President Trump announced “We are currently exploring normalizing relations with Syria’s new government, as you know, beginning with my meeting with President Ahmed al-Sharaa,” Trump said Wednesday morning at a summit of Arab kings and emirs who had flown in from across the Gulf. “We will be dropping all of the sanctions on Syria, which I think really is going to be a good thing.”
For more context on the matter, please consider Amy Austin Holmes. Holmes is a research professor of international affairs and program director of the DAO Regional Skill Sustainment Initiative at GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Dr. Holmes is an expert on global American military posture, the NATO alliance, non-state actors, revolutions, military coups, and de-facto states. With more than 15 years of global experience conducting research in the Middle East and Europe, including various conflict zones, she can speak on American foreign policy and international security.
Holmes recently published a new book on Syria, Statelet of Survivors, and has more than a decade experience doing research in Syria and worked at the State Department on Syria, Iraq, and Turkey through a Council on Foreign Relations fellowship that places academics in government. Additionally last October, Harvard did a Q&A with her on the topic which can be found here: Survival and Self-Determination in Northeast Syria.
If you wish to speak with Dr. Amy Austin Holmes, please contact Media Relations Specialist Shannon Mitchell at shannon [dot] mitchell
gwu [dot] edu (shannon[dot]mitchell[at]gwu[dot]edu).
-GW-