Syria Sanctions Accountability Act of 2025

Syria Sanctions Accountability Act of 2025, introduced by Mr. Lawler and referred to the House Financial Services (and Foreign Affairs, Judiciary) committees, would tighten and reassess U.S. sanctions on the Government of Syria while increasing U.S. engagement with international financial institutions. The bill requires a formal review of existing banking relief for the Commercial Bank of Syria, directs U.S. leadership at the IMF and World Bank to push for Syria’s data quality, AML capacity, and economic reform (with periodic congressional briefings), and mandates a review of country limitations under the Export-Import Bank. Most notably, it would modify the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 to link sanctions relief more explicitly to verifiable humanitarian and human-rights benchmarks (and other conditions), while shortening or altering previous renewal cycles and imposing a defined sunset. The overall aim is to improve monitoring and enforcement of sanctions, encourage financial transparency and anti-money-laundering capacity in Syria, and place clearer, time-bound conditions on any potential easing of sanctions. In practical terms, the bill could lead to closer congressional oversight of sanctions policy, targeted revisions to relief for Syrian banking activity, and conditional paths toward sanctions relief tied to specific humanitarian and governance benchmarks. It also creates a two-year time horizon for several key provisions, after which certain authorities would expire unless renewed.