ESSAY: Why Trump Shakes al-Sharaa's Hand Without Letting Go of Ukraine

Introduction: Two handshakes, one diplomacy of necessity

Ankara, crossroads of two files once thought incompatible

There is something dizzying about the image the NATO summit in Ankara produced in early July 2026: on the very same day, Donald Trump received, one after the other, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former insurgent leader whose forces overthrew Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. According to White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly, cited by the Straits Times, these two bilateral meetings were set to take place "Wednesday afternoon," back to back, as part of a diplomatic agenda deliberately widened beyond Ukraine.

That scheduling choice is not incidental. It reveals an American administration that now treats Syria's normalization and the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict as two parallel projects, with no declared hierarchy between them. For a president often accused of favoring spectacular files at the expense of long-term commitments, this double meeting is a textbook case of openly transactional diplomacy.

The meaning of a meeting that would have been unthinkable two years ago

The distance traveled needs to be measured. Al-Sharaa, who has himself acknowledged once being a fighter affiliated with al-Qaeda, has become within months a diplomatic partner received at the White House and now at a NATO summit. The New York Times and NPR note that he has "won Trump's support" as he tries to rebuild his country and restore ties with the West that had been severed for years. It is a diplomatic trajectory as fast as it is unusual, and it deserves the scrutiny that its very speed demands.

I don't hide my unease at the speed of this diplomatic rehabilitation. That geopolitical necessity requires dealing with Syria's new leaders, I understand. That this translates into press-conference smiles with no public questions about the man's past, that's another matter, and history will judge whether this caution was wise or naive.

What Washington is after in Syria

Lifting the state sponsor of terrorism designation

The most concrete gesture of this normalization was announced after the meeting: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump had informed U.S. lawmakers that the United States would soon remove Syria from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, as part of a one-year normalization process engaged with the new Syrian government, according to NPR. "Lifting sanctions on Syria will unlock international trade and investment, give Syria a chance to rebuild, and open a new chapter for the Syrian people," Rubio said.

This shift fits into a sequence already under way: in June 2025, Trump had signed an executive order ending several economic sanctions targeting Syria, before revoking, a few weeks later, the terrorist designation attached personally to al-Sharaa — the designation covering the Syrian state itself remaining in force until this Ankara announcement. The logic is that of a gradual, step-by-step thaw rather than an abrupt, complete reversal.

The substantive topics raised between the two presidents

According to several media outlets, including Business News Today, the talks between Trump and al-Sharaa were set to cover counterterrorism, foreign armed groups present in Syria, the country's territorial unity and the future of Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria. These are explosive files, where American, Turkish and Kurdish interests have crossed for years without a stable solution, and where every American decision has immediate repercussions on the ground.

American officials did not publicly detail the precise objectives of this meeting with al-Sharaa, unlike the meeting with Zelensky, for which a clear objective — advancing toward a deal ending the Ukrainian war — had been stated. This asymmetry in communication says a lot about the still uncertain, evolving nature of the relationship between Washington and Syria's new leadership.

There is a telling difference in treatment here: the objective with Zelensky is clear, documented, publicly owned. The one with al-Sharaa remains vague, almost experimental. That difference is not neutral — it reflects two very unequal diplomatic balances of power between a historic wartime ally and a new partner still on trial.

The Turkish context: Erdogan, host and central actor

A summit organized by an ally with its own interests

Choosing Ankara as the site of the NATO summit is not a neutral logistical detail. Türkiye, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, maintains complex, direct relations with the new Syria, having backed some of the groups that helped bring down Assad. Trump, in fact, opened his visit to Türkiye with a bilateral meeting with Erdoğan even before addressing the Ukrainian and Syrian files, according to USA Today and Anadolu Agency.

This Turkish-Syrian proximity makes Ankara an unavoidable interlocutor for any normalization between Washington and Damascus. Türkiye hopes to consolidate its regional influence through this new diplomatic configuration, while managing its own tensions with Kurdish forces present on both sides of its border with Syria — a file that happens to be among the topics raised during the Trump-al-Sharaa meeting.

A NATO summit with an unusually broad agenda

Usually centered on questions of defense spending and burden-sharing among allies, this NATO summit spilled well beyond its traditional framework. Leaders from 32 member countries, along with non-member allies such as Ukraine, found themselves discussing military spending, weapons production, support for Ukraine, and now Syria's diplomatic reintegration all at once — a stacking of files that would have seemed unthinkable a few years ago.

This unusual density in the agenda reflects how the Trump administration approaches diplomacy: rather than handling each file sequentially, it bundles them into compressed windows of time, even at the cost of sacrificing depth on each one in favor of the overall visibility of the presidential effort.

There is a certain skill, almost cynical, in this way of compressing several major files into a single diplomatic day. It lets Trump project the image of a leader present on every front. But I doubt a durable peace, in Ukraine as in Syria, can be built in the rush of such a crowded agenda.

Al-Sharaa's past, a question that will not disappear

From Islamist insurgent to White House interlocutor

It would be dishonest to cover this meeting without recalling the path traveled by the man at its center. Ahmad al-Sharaa led an Islamist insurgent group before his forces overthrew Bashar al-Assad's regime in December 2024. The Washington Times notes that he was once affiliated with jihadist movements before transforming into a political leader seeking international recognition. That trajectory is not a minor detail for a man now received in the highest Western diplomatic circles.

Al-Sharaa himself has said he has no interest in returning to his past activities, and has suggested that some of Trump's statements about him may have been misinterpreted, all while letting the American president repeat those same claims publicly. This calculated ambiguity — neither clear confirmation nor clear denial — characterizes a diplomacy where every word is weighed to maximize political gains without closing any door.

The Western bet on Syrian stability

Washington's implicit wager is that backing Syria's new leadership, despite its controversial past, carries less risk than leaving a power vacuum ripe for the return of extremist groups or an expansion of Iranian or Russian influence in the region. It is a classic geopolitical calculation, where immediate stability outweighs scruples about the personal trajectories of the leaders now in place.

This wager carries real risks. A normalization pursued too quickly, without solid guarantees on human rights or the protection of Syrian minorities, could backfire on Western interests if the new Syrian leadership fails to consolidate a stable, inclusive state. The history of Western interventions in the Middle East is full of similar bets that went badly wrong.

I don't claim to know the future of al-Sharaa or the Syria he now leads. But I refuse the easy path of applauding without reservation such a rapid diplomatic normalization simply because it serves short-term Western interests. Caution is not ill will; it's a lesson drawn from past failures.

Iran, the shared shadow over both files

A region shaped by rivalry with Tehran

What quietly links Syria and Ukraine in American diplomatic calculations is the constant presence of Iran as a destabilizing regional actor. Tehran long supported the Assad regime, and its loss of influence in Syria since his fall represents a major strategic setback for the Islamic Republic. Washington sees in normalization with the new Syria an opportunity to consolidate that Iranian retreat in the region.

In the same way, Iran's support for Russia in its war against Ukraine — through the supply of drones and other military equipment, widely documented since 2022 — places the Ukrainian conflict within that same global rivalry with Tehran. Both files, Syrian and Ukrainian, thus revolve around the same structural adversary that Washington considers one of the greatest threats to the West.

A strategic coherence beyond apparent scattering

What might look like a scattered diplomatic agenda — Ukraine, Syria, NATO spending, all in a single day — actually reveals an underlying strategic coherence: containing Russian and Iranian influence simultaneously across several theaters at once, by mobilizing whatever levers are available on each. The Ankara summit thus becomes a symbol of an American diplomacy that refuses to treat crises in isolation.

This approach nonetheless carries a risk of dilution: handling so many files in a single diplomatic sequence can give the impression of superficial management, where no subject receives the in-depth attention it would deserve. Permanent-emergency diplomacy has its limits, and they tend to surface at the moment least expected.

There is a certain strategic elegance in linking Syria and Ukraine through the Iranian prism. But I fear that conceptual elegance may mask a more prosaic reality: an overloaded presidential agenda, where each file receives only a fraction of the time and attention it would need to produce durable results.

The European allies' reaction to this double game

Muted worry over American priorities

NATO's European allies are watching this two-speed diplomacy with a mix of caution and muted worry. While normalization with Syria has not sparked outright opposition, it feeds a broader concern already noticeable since the June G7 summit: that of an American administration whose attention can shift quickly among several crisis points, at the expense of sustained commitment to Ukraine.

The Ankara summit also exposed persistent tensions between Trump and certain European allies, notably over defense spending and on matters unrelated to Ukraine or Syria, such as American ambitions regarding Greenland. These frictions are a reminder that the Western unity on display at international summits remains, behind the scenes, more fragile and harder to sustain than it appears.

The delicate balance among several simultaneous priorities

The challenge for European allies is ensuring that attention to Syria does not come at the expense of commitments made to Ukraine, notably the $80 billion pledge announced at the close of the summit for Ukrainian defense needs this year and next. This constant vigilance, exercised by European capitals eager to keep Washington engaged on several fronts at once, amounts to a high-precision diplomatic exercise.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte himself had to navigate these multiple priorities, praising American military efforts against Iran while insisting on progress in European defense spending — a balancing act meant to preserve the Alliance's cohesion despite the sometimes contradictory diversity of files handled simultaneously.

What I take from this sequence is the structural vulnerability of any alliance whose cohesion depends on one man's fluctuating attention. Europe knows this, and that is precisely why it keeps multiplying calls, visits and reminders: to keep Syria, however important, from making the world forget Ukraine.

What this meeting reveals about transactional diplomacy

A president who treats every file as a separate transaction

The juxtaposition of the meetings with Zelensky and al-Sharaa illustrates a diplomatic method characteristic of the Trump administration: every international relationship is assessed by what it can concretely deliver, rather than through a coherent, constant doctrine. With al-Sharaa, the sought-after payoff seems to be regional stability and the containment of Iranian influence. With Zelensky, it takes the shape of a negotiated peace deal, paired with a more balanced sharing of the financial burden with European allies.

This transactional approach, often criticized for lacking long-term vision, has produced tangible recent results in the Ukrainian case — the Patriot manufacturing license, the promised $80 billion in financing — that partly contradict the image of American disengagement. In the Syrian case, it has helped accelerate a diplomatic normalization that might otherwise have stretched over years under a more cautious administration.

The risks of a diplomacy without a stable doctrine

The downside of this method lies in its unpredictability. Allies, whether Ukrainian, Syrian or European, must constantly adapt to presidential priorities liable to change from one summit to the next. This structural instability forces every partner of Washington into a diplomatic effort of constant renewal of American attention, rather than being able to count on stable, predictable commitments.

It is in that context that Zelensky's repeated insistence, summit after summit, on keeping Ukraine at the center of Western attention must be understood: it is not merely a matter of communication, but a strategic necessity in the face of an American diplomacy that redistributes its priorities with disconcerting speed.

I don't judge this transactional method as inherently good or bad — it has its successes and its failures. What worries me more is the burden it places on the most vulnerable allies, those who, like Ukraine, don't have the luxury of letting their survival depend on the shifting moods of an overloaded presidential agenda.

The economic stakes of a Syria reintegrated into world trade

Reconstruction as a magnet for investment

The lifting of American sanctions on Syria opens the door to international investment the country badly needs after more than a decade of civil war and widely destroyed infrastructure. According to Marco Rubio, lifting sanctions will "unlock international trade and investment" and give Syria "a chance to rebuild." Western companies, until now kept away by the sanctions regime, could now consider projects in a country whose energy and agricultural potential remains largely untapped.

This economic prospect partly explains Washington's eagerness to rapidly normalize relations with Damascus, a calculation that mixes strategy and commerce. A stabilized Syria integrated into Western trade circuits would represent a counterweight to Russian and Iranian influence in the region, while offering new markets to American and European companies. Diplomacy and economics move here hand in hand, as they often do in the Middle East.

The risks of reconstruction without sufficient safeguards

The risk, widely flagged by some regional analysts, is that this economic rush proceeds without sufficient guarantees on governance, human rights and the protection of Syrian minorities. Reconstruction pursued too quickly, without clear political conditions, could entrench a power still fragile and contested without guaranteeing lasting stability for the Syrian population as a whole.

Washington's European allies are watching this dynamic with cautious interest, aware that any future instability in Syria would have direct repercussions on their own migration and security policies. Europe has already paid the price of past Syrian crises; it has no interest in living through a mismanaged new version of one.

There is something predictable in this chain between diplomatic normalization and economic appetite. I don't blame Western companies for wanting to invest in a rebuilding Syria. But recent Middle East history teaches us that economic rush without solid political safeguards often ends up costing far more than it earns.

Conclusion: Two files, one shared lesson about the West and its priorities

What the simultaneity of these two meetings reveals

July 8, 2026 in Ankara will be remembered as a revealing snapshot of contemporary American diplomacy: two leaders on radically different trajectories, received one after the other by the same president, at the same summit devoted, in theory, to collective Western defense. This simultaneity is no scheduling accident; it reflects a vision where all security and regional-stability files are now handled in the same compressed diplomatic breath.

For Ukraine, this configuration carries both a risk and an opportunity: the risk of seeing its file diluted among other competing priorities, and the opportunity of benefiting from an American administration diplomatically mobilized enough to handle several crises in parallel without neglecting any of them — for now.

The vigilance that must remain

The test of this multi-track diplomacy will not be measured in the coming weeks, but in the months that follow: will normalization with Syria live up to its promises of regional stability? Will the commitments made to Ukraine in Ankara — the Patriot license, the $80 billion in financing — translate into actual deliveries? It is these concrete results, not a summit's handshakes, that will determine whether July 8 was a turning point or a mere diplomatic parenthesis.

It will fall to European allies and to Ukrainian and Syrian civil society to keep up the pressure needed so these commitments do not remain dead letters. No diplomacy, however tactically skillful, replaces the constant vigilance of those who bear its consequences.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

I close this essay with a question that has no easy answer: can a lasting peace really be built, in Syria as in Ukraine, out of a diplomacy that treats every file as a separate transaction? I'm not sure. But I do know that the alternative — Western indifference — would be worse still.

Columnist's transparency note

Editorial positioning

This essay follows a clear editorial line: support for Ukraine, critical vigilance toward any rapid diplomatic normalization, including that concerning Syria. Donald Trump's conduct is treated here as that of a necessary geopolitical actor for the West on international security grounds, without glossing over the gray areas of his diplomatic method. This positioning reflects the columnist's judgment and does not claim false neutrality.

Methodology and sources

All facts, quotes and figures cited come from verified journalistic sources: Straits Times, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Times, USA Today, Anadolu Agency and Business News Today. No fact, date, quote or figure has been invented or extrapolated. Statements attributed to Marco Rubio and the officials cited are drawn from their public remarks as reported by these outlets.

Nature of the analysis and limits of the file

This text is a geopolitical essay, accompanied by clearly identified personal commentary. The available record does not allow for knowledge of the detailed, confidential content of the exchanges between Trump and al-Sharaa; only the public statements reported by the cited outlets are transcribed here. Maxime Marquette (MadMax) is a columnist-analyst whose mission is to interpret geopolitical news, not to claim absolute objectivity.

Sources

Primary sources

Trump to meet Zelensky and al-Sharaa on sidelines of NATO summit — Straits Times, July 6, 2026

Trump closes NATO summit on a positive note after meeting Zelensky and al-Sharaa — NPR, July 9, 2026

Inside Trump's high-stakes trip to the NATO summit in Turkey — USA Today, July 7, 2026

Secondary sources

Trump to meet Ukraine's Zelensky and Syria's al-Sharaa at NATO summit — The Washington Times, July 5, 2026

Trump to meet Zelensky and Syria's al-Sharaa during NATO summit in Ankara — Anadolu Agency, July 5, 2026

Trump to meet Zelensky and al-Sharaa as Ankara NATO summit tests alliance unity — Business News Today, July 6, 2026