Trump shocks and delights Syrians by lifting sanctions after 45 years. Now what?

Syrians celebrated after President Donald Trump made the surprise announcement that the U.S. would lift sanctions on the country’s economy after 45 years.

The streets of Syria were a carnival of car horns, fireworks and flags after President Donald Trump made the surprise announcement that the United States would lift sanctions that have throttled the country’s economy for more than 45 years.

Trump stunned even close observers on Tuesday by saying he wants to normalize relations after Syria’s longtime president, Bashar al Assad, was toppled in December. Trump met Wednesday with Assad’s successor, interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former leader of an al-Qaeda offshoot group, in Saudi Arabia after urging him late Tuesday to “show us something special.”

That has delighted Syrians and campaigners, who have been calling for sanctions relief to rebuild the war-ruined country — a reconstruction priced up to $400 billion. When Trump made the announcement — telling a Saudi audience “we’re taking them all off” — Syrian housewife Dalal Qallab took to the streets with her children in an outpouring of joy.

Revelers in Damascus' Omeyyad square Tuesday, after Trump said he would lift sanctions on Syria.Bakr Alkasem / AFP via Getty Images“Trump said that he will give us a chance, and we deserve that chance,” Qallab, a mother of four from the port city of Latakia, told NBC News. “After 14 years, I felt that the American president cared about us,” she added. “It was a historic moment. It gave us hope for a better life.”It’s a chance at relief after a grim 14 years in a country that until now has been one of the world’s most sanctioned.

“There have been very few positive things happening in Syria,” said Aron Lund, a Syria expert and a fellow at Century International, a progressive think tank based in Washington. “Assad going was, of course, positive in the sense that you got rid of this mass murderer,” but the “economic morass” has persisted.