Relaxing Export Controls for Syria

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>Bureau of Industry and Security</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Parts 736, 740, and 746</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250827-0147]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0694-AK28</RIN> <SUBJECT>Relaxing Export Controls for Syria</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this final rule, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) makes changes to the Syria export control measures under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), consistent with Executive Order (E.O.) 14312, Providing for the Revocation of Syria Sanctions, which directed the removal of sanctions on Syria. This final rule relaxes the EAR's existing restrictions on exports and reexports to Syria of items subject to the EAR by making the following changes: revising certain restrictive license application review policies that had applied to most items subject to the EAR to be more favorable; expanding existing license exceptions to apply to Syria; and adding new license exceptions for Syria, including for EAR99 items. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective September 2, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For questions on this final rule, contact Benjamin Barron, Supervisory Export Policy Analyst, Human Rights and Embargoes Division, Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce, Phone: 202-482-4252, Email: <E T="03">HumanRights.Embargoes@bis.doc.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Export Restrictions Regarding Syria Prior to This Final Rule</HD> Section (5)(a)(1) of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 (Pub. L. 108-175) (the SAA), requires the Department of Commerce to prohibit the export to Syria of all items (commodities, software, and technology) that are specified on the Commerce Control List (CCL), supplement no. 1 to part 774 of the EAR. The SAA also directed the President to select at least two additional restrictions from a set of six enumerated restrictions. One of these restrictions is a prohibition on the export and reexport to Syria of products of the United States other than food and medicine, which are items that are subject to the EAR but not specified on the CCL <E T="03">i.e.,</E> EAR99 items. See section 5(a)(2)(A) of the SAA. In E.O. 13338 of May 11, 2004, Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting the Export of Certain Goods to Syria, the E.O. that implemented the SAA, President George W. Bush selected the prohibition set forth in section 5(a)(2)(A) of the SAA on the export of EAR99 items apart from food and medicine. Pursuant to section 5(b) of the SAA, the application of the aforementioned restrictions may be waived upon a determination by the President that it is in the national security interest of the United States to do so and the submission of a report containing the reasons for such a determination to the appropriate congressional committees. Additionally, as part of E.O. 13338, the President exercised national security waiver authority pursuant to section 5(b) of the SAA and waived restrictions otherwise required by the SAA, thereby allowing for the case-by-case licensing by BIS of certain specified categories of export and reexport transactions involving items on the CCL. Further, in E.O. 13338, the President delegated authority to issue future waivers to the Secretary of State. Pursuant to E.O. 13338, BIS added General Order No. 2 to the EAR (specifically, in supplement no. 1 to part 736) as part of a May 14, 2004, final rule (69 FR 26766) that amended the EAR to reflect the new export restrictions on Syria. As set forth in § 746.9 (Syria) and General Order No. 2, BIS imposed export controls and adopted a restrictive license application review policy (a general policy of denial) on exports and reexports to Syria of nearly all items subject to the EAR except for EAR99 food and medicine. In December 2011, to facilitate compliance, BIS amended the EAR in a final rule by moving the substantive provisions setting forth the controls for exports and reexports to Syria from General Order No. 2 to a revised § 746.9 and retaining the waiver provisions of General Order No. 2 in supplement no. 1 to part 736 (76 FR 77115; Dec. 12, 2011). In June 2013, to address foreign policy concerns raised by the Syrian civil war, then-Secretary of State John Kerry issued a waiver of the SAA's export restrictions to permit items for the support of the Syrian people. BIS implemented this waiver in § 746.9(c)(2) of the EAR by adding items necessary for the support of the Syrian people as a new category of items subject to case-by-case licensing. <E T="03">See</E> 78 FR 43972 (July 23, 2013). Additionally, since 2013, Syria has been subject to export control restrictions under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act). Syria was made subject to an initial round of export and reexport restrictions on items controlled under the EAR for national security reasons in September 2013 following the State Department's August 2, 2013, determination under the CBW Act that the Syrian Government had used chemical weapons in violation of international law or lethal chemical weapons against its own nationals. See section 307(a)(5) of the CBW Act and the Department of State's September 10, 2013, <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice (78 FR 55326). In December 2013, the State Department rendered Syria subject to additional export and reexport restrictions that extended the scope of items to most items subject to the EAR. See section 307(b)(2)(C) of the CBW Act and the Department of State's December 10, 2013, <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice (78 FR 74218). <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Basis for Changes to Export Control Measures for Syria Made in This Final Rule</HD> The President announced his intention to lift sanctions against Syria on May 13, 2025, and on June 30, 2025, determined that it was in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States to remove sanctions, restrictive export controls, and other forms of restrictions on Syria in E.O. 14312. The President's announcement and issuance of E.O. 14312 reflect the U.S. Government's commitment to supporting a Syria that is stable, unified, and at peace with itself and its neighbors. In section 6 of E.O. 14312 the President waived the application of section 5(a)(1) of the SAA with respect to items on the CCL and section 5(a)(2)(A), with respect to the export of items subject to the EAR apart from EAR99 food and medicine. Additionally, section 7 of the E.O. waived the sanctions imposed under sections 307(a)(5) and 307(b)(2)(C) of the CBW Act that had imposed restrictions on the export and reexport to Syria of items subject to the EAR. In this final rule, BIS makes changes to the Syria export control measures in § 746.9 of the EAR consistent with E.O. 14312, in which the President waived export restrictions that had been required under the SAA and the CBW Act. BIS in this final rule is also removing General Order No. 2 to part 746 from the EAR in light of the President's termination of the national emergency declared in E.O. 13338 and revocation of that E.O. The actions taken by BIS in this final rule support critical economic activity and stabilization efforts outlined in E.O. 14312 and align with the U.S. Government's broader objective of promoting peace, economic security, and prosperity in Syria. BIS's regulatory measures in this final rule also complement those taken recently by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to remove certain sanctions on Syria. Pursuant to E.O. 14312, OFAC removed the Syrian Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 542 (SySR), from the Code of Federal Regulations on August 26, 2025, (90 FR 41505). E.O. 14312 further revokes six Executive Orders which form the foundation of the Syria sanctions program and terminates the national emergency underlying those Executive Orders. Persons designated solely pursuant to these orders have been removed from OFAC's List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN List). Certain persons, including Bashar al-Assad and other destabilizing regional actors, remain on the SDN List due to their designation under separate sanctions authorities. These changes follow Syria General License 25 of May 23, 2025, “Authorizing Transactions Prohibited by the Syrian Sanctions Regulations or Involving Certain Blocked Persons,” and the Department of State's related waiver of the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act on May 23, 2025, that generally authorize transactions with the Government of Syria and certain Syria SDNs that would otherwise be prohibited under the SySR as well as various other sanctions authorities. As a general matter, E.O. 14312 does not authorize or otherwise provide relief to Bashar al-Assad or his associates, to ISIS or other terrorist organizations, human rights abusers, or other persons that threaten the peace, security, or stability of the United States, Syria, and its neighbors. Notably, certain individuals and entities that have participated in or otherwise supported malign and destabilizing actions in Syria, including by supporting the former regime of Bashar al-Assad, continue to be designated on the SDN List and transactions involving these persons and entities may remain subject to license requirements from BIS pursuant to § 744.8 of the EAR. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Overview of This Final Rule</HD> In this final rule, BIS makes changes to the export control measures for Syria under the EAR. The three sets of changes being made are described in section II as follows: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 45k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━