Click here to subscribe.When President Donald Trump met with Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, the encounter went beyond the “hello” the White House had told reporters to expect.

When President Donald Trump announced in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday that he would lift all sanctions on Syria, the decision, which will boost a country devastated by 13 years of war, took many in the region by surprise.

WASHINGTON − President Donald Trump, whose family has major business interests in the Gulf countries he is visiting this week, said there was no talk of building a Trump Tower in Syria or golf during his meetings in Saudi Arabia that ended on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump met with Syria's interim leader Ahmad al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, marking the first high-level meeting between U.S. and Syrian heads of state in a quarter-century. The closed-door session came on the sidelines of Trump's summit with Gulf leaders and could signal a dramatic shift in American policy toward Syria.