'We May Take Them Off': Trump Floats Lifting Sanctions On Syria To 'Give Them A Fresh Start'

Forbes Breaking News

During a press briefing on Monday, President Trump spoke about his administration potentially lifting sanctions on the new Syrian government that emerged following the collapse of the Assad regime.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, everybody. I think it's a very important day. In many ways, we'll start with the Houthis.

00:07We go to Pakistan and India. We go to what we did with China, the trade deal, and with the UK.

00:13And by the way, many other deals are coming in very much. At a certain point, we'll just set the price,

00:19because we know where we are. But we'll just set the price. But world trade is going to be terrific,

00:24and our country is going to be making a lot of money. Taxes are going to go down.

00:30Taxes are going to go down very, very substantially. But you look at all of the things that we've done,

00:35and now today, I'm heading over. We'll see what we're going to do with respect to Iran.

00:42I think you have very good things happening there, too, by the way. I can't have a nuclear weapon,

00:48but I think that they are talking intelligently. We're in the midst of talking to them,

00:53and they're right now acting very intelligent. We want Iran to be wealthy and wonderful and happy

01:00and great, but they can't have a nuclear weapon. It's very simple. So I think they understand that

01:06I mean business, and I think they're being very reasonable thus far. And don't underestimate

01:15Thursday in Turkey. President Erdogan is going to be a great host, and we are doing some work with him,

01:27having to do with Syria, too, by the way. We're going to have to make a decision on the sanctions,

01:32which we may very well relieve. We may take them off of Syria, because we want to give them a fresh start.

01:37But President Erdogan has asked me about that. Many people have asked me about that,

01:43because the way we have them sanctioned, it doesn't really give them much of a start.

01:46So we want to see if we can help them out. So we'll make that determination.

01:51But I think you're going to have maybe a good meeting. You have the potential for a good meeting,

01:55that a meeting wasn't going to take place. I insisted that that meeting take place,

01:58and it is taking place. And I think you may have a good result out of the Thursday meeting in Turkey

02:04between Russia and Ukraine. And I believe the two leaders were going to be there.

02:09I was thinking about flying over. I don't know where I'm going to be on Thursday. I've got so many

02:13meetings. But I was thinking about actually flying over there. There's a possibility of it,

02:18I guess, if I think things can happen. But we've got to get it done. We've got to save 5,000 lives a week.

02:235,000 lives is really more than that. It's worse than that. And when you see the – and you don't want to see it,

02:28but when you see the satellite photographs of the battlefield with arms and legs and heads

02:33all over the place, separated by 30 yards from bodies, it's not – it doesn't make sense.

02:43It doesn't make sense. So we're working very hard to see if we can end that bloodbath.

Category

Transcript

Recommended