DAMASCUS/WASHINGTON: A Trump Tower in Damascus, a detente with Israel and US access to Syria’s oil and gas are part of Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa’s strategic pitch to try to get face time with US President Donald Trump during his trip to the Middle East, according to several sources familiar with the push to woo Washington.
Jonathan Bass, an American pro-Trump activist, who on Apr 30 met Sharaa for four hours in Damascus, along with Syrian activists and Gulf Arab states has been trying to arrange a landmark, if highly unlikely, meeting between the two leaders this week on the sidelines of Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Syria has struggled to implement conditions set out by Washington for relief from US sanctions, which keep the country cut off from the global financial system and make economic recovery extremely challenging after 14 years of grinding war.
Bass hopes that getting Trump into a room with Sharaa, who still remains a US-designated terrorist over his al-Qaeda past, could help soften the Republican President and his administration’s thinking on Damascus and cool an increasingly tense relationship between Syria and Israel.
Part of the bet for the effort is based on Trump’s history of breaking with longstanding US foreign policy taboos, such as when he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea in 2019.
“Sharaa wants a business deal for the future of his country,” Bass said, noting it could cover energy exploitation, cooperation against Iran and engagement with Israel.
