American officials plan to visit Damascus in the near future to conclude an agreement on military bases. According to Arab media reports, Washington intends to leave one of its bases in Syria with a small garrison, but to obtain official permission for the facility. This will provide an opportunity for the Syrian Transitional Government to strengthen its international position. And the administration of President Donald Trump is counting on deepening political and economic cooperation.
Sources from The Independent Arabia newspaper have informed The Independent that The Trump administration is considering a deal with Damascus on military bases. According to them, as part of the planned agreement, Washington wants to preserve the At-Tanf base, which is located in a strategically important triangle at the junction of the borders of Syria, Iraq and Jordan.
At the same time, the US authorities want to leave their positions in the oil-rich northeast of the republic, controlled by the Kurds. According to the interlocutors of The Independent Arabia, Washington is ready to limit its geographical presence, however, in exchange for expanding political and economic ties with the government headed by transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
As Republican American Congressman Marlin Sputzman, who visited Syria in April, explained to The Independent Arabia, Washington will reduce the number of its troops in the Arab Republic because the international coalition against the Islamic State (IS) (recognized as terrorist in Russia and banned) has successfully completed its mission. Damascus itself, according to Sputzman, may well be a player friendly to Washington. “President Trump met with President al-Sharaa and announced the lifting of sanctions against Syria. This is a real opportunity to rebuild the country after decades of dictatorship,” the congressman said.
As an unnamed representative of the US Department of Defense told the Kurdish Rudaw channel, the new formula for the American presence will assume that only a thousand troops will remain in Syria. According to him, the Pentagon is in the process of withdrawing its forces from military installations in northeastern Syria. At the moment, the number of military personnel working in the republic is estimated at 1.5 thousand, although against the background of the fall of Damascus on December 8, 2024, the American side tried to play it safe and increase the contingent to 2 thousand. “Coordination is underway with the State Department, and an official statement from the Pentagon is expected soon,” Rudaw’s source in the military department added.
Trump’s Special Envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, recently told Turkish media that the new US approach to the Syrian arena reflects a strategic reorientation. “I can assure you that our current policy towards Syria will not be close to the policy of the last century, because then nothing worked,” the diplomat said.
The Pentagon is now actively working to review the entire structure of the deployment of its armed forces at the global level. “The responsible approach for the United States will be to continue reviewing the deployment of our forces,” Pete Hegseth, chief of the US military, explained on June 5, speaking at a NATO ministerial meeting. – We will protect our southern border and close it, as the previous administration allowed 20 million people to enter our country illegally. We have to take full control of this. We must switch to the Indo-Pacific region and ensure deterrence there. And of course, we will spread the burden of defense spending around the world.” According to him, America cannot defend all countries at the same time and it “is not obligated to do so.”
In Syria, American troops worked as part of the international coalition against ISIS. During his first term as president, in 2018 and 2019, Trump actively advocated the complete curtailment of the American presence in this part of the Middle East. However, the closest circle of the head of state was able to dissuade him from the total evacuation of the military. At that time, Trump authorized the deployment of only a few hundred fighters in eastern Syria and explained this by the need to protect oil-bearing areas while obtaining economic benefits from this.