After a coalition of rebels ousted the dictator Bashar al-Assad, the Trump administration mostly ignored Syria for months.
Then, President Trump flipped the script.
During a visit to Saudi Arabia in May, he made a surprising announcement: The United States would suspend longstanding economic sanctions in a good will gesture meant to give Syria “a chance at greatness.”
It was a head-spinning reversal that was cheered in Syria, where more than 90 percent of the population lives in poverty, according to the United Nations.
Then on Monday, President Trump signed an executive order ending most of the sanctions. Not all sanctions are in his power to repeal — some require approval from Congress. Even so, the move is a signal to other countries and financial institutions that they will not face repercussions from Washington for renewed economic dealings with Syria — throwing a lifeline to the new government in Damascus despite concerns about how its Islamist president will govern the country going forward.
As the U.S. approach has warmed, the Trump administration has signaled that it has limited interest in how Syria and other countries in the region run their internal affairs.
But over the past few months, U.S. officials have laid out a number of expectations for how Syria handles issues of regional importance, such as security and relations with neighboring states. These were not presented as conditions, rather broader goals for President Ahmed al-Shara, who led the rebel forces that overthrew the Assad family dictatorship after five decades in power.
Here is a breakdown of what Washington has said it wants from Syria and how the new government is responding.
Peaceful Relations With Israel
Washington is keen that Syria not become a threat to important regional allies, particularly Israel.
When Mr. Trump met Mr. al-Shara in Saudi Arabia in May, he urged the Syrian leader to take steps to normalize relations with Israel, which have long been hostile.
Mr. Trump has said he hopes to see Syria eventually join the Abraham Accords, which established formal ties between Israel and four Arab countries during the American president’s previous term.
The new U.S. envoy to Syria, Thomas Barrack, has said he would like to see Syria seek a nonaggression pact with Israel for now.
In a sign that Mr. al-Shara is taking the matter seriously, diplomats and Israeli officials say representatives of the two countries have met discreetly.
Find and Destroy Chemical Weapons
A top priority for the United States is dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons program, which started in the 1970s.
Syrian scientists developed sarin, chlorine and mustard gas stockpiles, some of which Mr. Assad’s security forces turned against their own people during the country’s 13-year civil war.
That prompted a 2013 agreement under which the United Nation’s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons sent inspectors to shut down 27 sites related to chemical weapons production.
Syria’s new government has invited in experts and is cooperating in sharing information on remaining stockpiles. But as many as 100 sites remain hidden, experts estimate, and controlling and destroying these sites will be a challenge in a country still fragmented by conflict.
Managing Foreign Fighters
Muslim fighters from around the world flocked to Syria as the 2011 protest movement against Mr. Assad devolved into an armed insurgency.
Many of them were jihadists who joined extremist groups like the Islamic State or the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, which Mr. al-Shara founded and led for years. He broke ties with Al Qaeda in 2016 and has tried to distance his forces from their jihadist roots since.
But thousands of foreign fighters stayed with his rebel group or in separate formations that remained loyal. And he, in turn, has made clear that he feels loyalty to those who fought alongside him.
U.S. officials have, for years, worried that allowing these foreign fighters to remain in Syria could allow them to plot terrorist attacks abroad.
But Mr. al-Shara pushed back on initial U.S. requests to purge them from his forces or expel them, and in fact has started to integrate them into his new military.
His officials argue it would be nearly impossible to return fighters to their home countries, which could refuse to accept them or could execute them. And they warn that alienating such fighters in Syria could sew divisions and destabilize the fragile new system.
After Mr. Trump initially demanded that “all foreign terrorists” leave Syria, U.S. officials are now seeking only “transparency” about where the foreign combatants are placed.
Remove Palestinian Militant Groups
Mr. al-Assad, the deposed dictator, allowed some Palestinian militant groups to operate freely in Syria for years. The U.S. has pushed for the removal of these groups from the country — something that America’s ally, Israel, would welcome.
Mr. al-Shara’s government in April arrested two senior members of the Palestinian armed faction Islamic Jihad, an Iran-backed backed group allied with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza. But a wider push may prove tricky.
Syrian officials are asking where, exactly, the officials and militants of these Palestinian groups should be sent. Neighboring Lebanon, battered by Israel’s war with the Iran-backed group Hezbollah last year, is under pressure to crack down on Palestinian groups as well.
Syria’s other neighbors are also unlikely to host groups that could stoke unrest or draw Israeli attacks. A wholesale exile of Palestinian groups is therefore a difficult request for Syria.
The United States also wants Syria to root out forces loyal to Iran, which for years used Syria as a critical land corridor connecting Iran to its most important regional ally, Hezbollah in Lebanon.
That is not a hard sell for Mr. al-Shara, who sees Iran and Hezbollah as complicit with the Assad regime. But he may need foreign intelligence help to do so.
Find Missing Americans
A top priority for Mr. Trump has been to find Americans who went missing during Syria’s war, from those kidnapped and killed by the jihadist group Islamic State to those whose fate remains unknown, including the American journalist Austin Tice.
Mr. al-Shara has seemed keen to oblige. He met with Mr. Tice’s mother before he met with family members of the tens of thousands of Syrians whose loved ones are also still missing.
Some members of the former Assad regime say they have been questioned by Syria’s new officials as they look for new leads.
Prevent an Islamic State Resurgence
During Syria’s civil war, the Islamic State captured a large chunk of eastern Syrian and ruled over it for years. A U.S.-led international coalition, partnering with a Kurdish-led Syrian militia, waged a long and hard fight to wrest back that territory.
Now the specter of an Islamic State resurgence looms over a country that is weak and divided after so many years of war.
U.S. forces remain in some eight bases set up with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Mr. Barrack, the new U.S. envoy to Syria, says the U.S. goal is to draw down to one base.
The Kurdish-led force manages a number of prisons for suspected Islamic State fighters as well as two camps that house tens of thousands of spouses and children of Islamic State members.
Washington is eager to shut down these camps, where miserable conditions are seen to breed extremism. That would require Mr. al-Shara’s government to first take control of the camps, then find a way to repatriate their tens of thousands of residents.
Washington also wants his forces to take over running the high-security Islamic State prisons from the Kurdish-led forces.
Mr. al-Shara recently sent a delegation to visit the camps and prisons.
But Western diplomats have warned that putting such an immense security undertaking on Mr. al-Shara’s fragile new security apparatus, which still does not control the territory surrounding that region, is risky.
Adam Rasgon contributed reporting
Ben Hubbard is the Istanbul bureau chief, covering Turkey and the surrounding region.
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