US President Donald Trump meets Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, tossing previous foreign policy taboos aside

US President Donald Trump met with Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, on Wednesday as he tossed out foreign policy taboos, sought peace with Iran and told regional leaders that their best successes came when the United States stepped back and let them determine their own futures.

The day began with pomp in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and ended in neighboring Qatar after the US leader was greeted with camels and sped to what he said was a “perfecto” marble palace.

Along the way, Mr Trump continued to rewrite the US approach to the region as he met with Mr Sharaa, a former rebel leader once affiliated with al-Qaeda, who has sought to project a more moderate image since capturing Damascus in December.

It was the latest instance of Mr Trump’s pragmatic, try-everything approach to foreign policy, which appears to eschew the grand strategy employed by his predecessors in favour of transactional, incremental wins. It has led to a blitz of efforts ranging from freeing the last US hostage held by Hamas to declaring a desire to reverse nearly 50 years of simmering tension with Iran to openness to claiming a $400 million luxury Boeing 747 on offer from Qatar in the service of addressing Mr Trump’s frustration with the ageing Air Force One.

Many of the initiatives have uncertain prospects of success, and the potential free jet has unsettled even some of Mr Trump’s most ardent supporters, who have questioned whether a foreign power is buying its way to the president’s heart in the form of expensive luxury.

Mr Trump hammered back in defence of the 747 idea on Wednesday, saying in an early-morning Truth Social post that Qatar wants to “reward us for a job well done” and that “only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our country.”

Mr Trump’s transactional approach to the presidency has neatly matched that of the monarchs in the Persian Gulf region, who increasingly recognise that Mr Trump is happiest when they are doing deals with him, whether business or security or gifted luxury 747s.

Qatar on Wednesday inked a deal to buy what Trump touted as 160 Boeing jets - there was some uncertainty about the number - as the U.S. leader bragged, “That’s a record.”

“All the Gulfies like dealing with Trump,” said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

“It’s easy to understand where he’s coming from. It’s a patriarchal structure. He’s the big guy, and everything centres around him. … That’s how they move, too.”

Monarchs in the gulf region “do not distinguish between their personal interests and national interests,” Mr Ibish said.

Mr Trump’s stops on this trip - from Saudi Arabia to Qatar to the United Arab Emirates - line up neatly as countries where his sons have signed business deals in recent weeks on behalf of the Trump Organisation, the family business, and World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm started in September 2024 that was co-founded by Mr Trump’s sons and Zach Witkoff, one of the sons of Mr Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

The White House says that Mr Trump is taking a financial hit from being president and that he no longer has any involvement in his family businesses.

But Qatar may be at the forefront in using its largess to turn around its status with Mr Trump.

For much of his first term, Saudi Arabia led a de facto regional blockade against Qatar, isolating the country economically over its relationship with Iran, its past support for the Muslim Brotherhood and its funding for the Al Jazeera news network, whose reporting has at times upset neighbouring governments.

Back then, Mr Trump largely sympathised with Qatar’s opponents, though his administration worked to end the tensions and used Doha as a mediator in talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban rebels.

The blockade ended in January 2021, shortly before Mr Trump left office. Since then, Qatari leaders have doubled down on their efforts to be indispensable regional mediators, hosting talks between Hamas and Israel and between Russia and Ukraine, among others.

Mr Trump has been ready to move at greater speed on foreign policy in his second term. Freed from the pressures of reelection, and from the nay-saying of advisers who sometimes curbed his impulses the first time around, the US leader is now far more open to trying unorthodox policies - such as imposing crippling tariffs on many US allies, then spinning around and dialling them back after bond markets rebelled.

And he has also been open to mixing official work with actions that boost his family’s business interests, from the Trump meme coin to a Melania Trump documentary for which Amazon has paid $40 million.

In the case of Syria, Mr Trump’s approach was welcome relief to proponents of a fresh strategy toward Damascus. They had pushed to end sanctions that they said were needlessly damaging a country just beginning to shake off 14 years of civil war.

The meeting with Mr Sharaa went “great,” Mr Trump told reporters on Air Force One during the hour-long flight from Saudi Arabia to Qatar.

Mr Sharaa is a “young, attractive guy,” Mr Trump said.

“Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.”

Mr Sharaa has “a real shot at holding it together,” Mr Trump said.

“He’s a real leader. He led the charge, and he’s amazing.”

In a meeting of leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh on Wednesday, Mr Trump noted that his announcement the previous evening that he would reverse sanctions on Syria drew an ovation and the largest applause of the night.

“I’ve seen such progress,” Mr Trump said of the whole region.

“The whole world is watching the Middle East.”

Wednesday’s meeting with Mr Sharaa stretched more than half an hour, according to the White House.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hosted, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dialled in via video conference.

Mr Trump on Tuesday ended sanctions on the country’s economy that were intended to squeeze the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who ruled the country with an iron grip for decades before he was ousted in December.

The sanctions had been left in place because of Washington’s uncertainty about Mr Sharaa’s intentions and to push him to remake Syria inclusively. But advocates of a policy change said they were sending the wrong message to Damascus and depriving the new leader of the oxygen he needed to air out society. Mr Trump ultimately sided with them.

Mr Trump also handed Iran a choice, warning that he would not allow the country to develop a nuclear weapon but also declaring a startling openness to reshaping relations with Tehran if it makes a deal.

“It’s been really an interesting situation. I have a feeling it’s going to work out,” Mr Trump said Wednesday in Doha.

He told Saudi leaders the day earlier that, on Tehran, “I have never believed in having permanent enemies. I am different than a lot of people think.”

Mr Trump’s approach has unsettled leaders who have a more ideological approach to global affairs, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel sees Iran as a mortal enemy and has also often prioritised bombing Hamas into submission in Gaza rather than engaging diplomatically to free the remaining hostages held by the Palestinian militant group.

The Trump administration went over Mr Netanyahu’s head and worked directly with Hamas to secure this week’s release of the final American hostage, Edan Alexander. But Mr Trump on Wednesday said that Israel should not be worried.

“This is good for Israel, having a relationship like I have with these countries, Middle Eastern countries, essentially all of them.”

As with the Saudis, the Qataris also rolled out a lavish ceremony for Mr Trump’s arrival, with an honour guard of dozens singing songs, some of them mounted on white horses, some on black horses, others dancing with swords raised. There were also camels.

“I haven’t seen camels like that in a long time. And it was some greeting. We appreciate it very much,” Mr Trump said upon arriving at the Amiri Diwan, the administrative offices of Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Mr Trump marvelled at the soaring architecture around him.

“The job you’ve done is second to none. You look at this, it’s so beautiful. As a construction person, I’m seeing perfect marble. This is what they call perfecto,” he said.

A Bahraini governmental 747-400 was parked at the Riyadh airport on Wednesday near the Royal Terminal. It sported the partly extended second floor of that model series, which was slightly larger than the familiar, baby-blue-and-white Air Force One idled in a different corner of the airport before Mr Trump’s departure.

But Bahrain’s 747-400 is not as big as the longer and larger-capacity 747-8 that the Qatari government wants to give to Trump.

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Abigail Hauslohner in Washington contributed to this report.

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