The Trump administration revoked the terrorist designation for Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the militant group who overthrew President Bashar al’Assad and assumed control of the Syrian government. 

The group was formed as Syria’s al-Qaeda branch. In an astounding turnaround, the group’s interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa went from a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head to the de facto leader of Syria who scored a meeting with President Donald Trump in June. 

Al-Sharaa had been campaigning hard for a relationship with Washington and sanctions relief: He offered to build a Trump Tower in Damascus, ease hostilities with Israel, and give U.S. access to Syria’s oil and gas. He worked to soften the image of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and promised an inclusive governing structure. 

‘In consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, I hereby revoke the designation of al-Nusrah Front, also known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (and other aliases) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization,’ Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a memo made public Monday. 

The move comes a week after Trump signed an executive order ending sanctions imposed on Syria. Trump said he’d lift the sanctions on Syria to give the nation, ravaged by decades of civil war, a chance at economic development. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that lifting sanctions would help Syria ‘reestablish ties to global commerce and build international confidence,’ while continuing to prevent ‘Assad, his cronies, terrorists, and other illicit actors from attempting to destabilize Syria and the region.’ 

HTS, a Sunni Islamist group, emerged out of Jabhat al-Nusra, Syria’s former al-Qaeda affiliate. The State Department under Trump in 2018 added HTS to the existing al-Nusra foreign terrorist designation.

Some sanctions still will need to be lifted by Congress. In a bipartisan pairing from opposite sides of the political spectrum, Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., recently introduced legislation to lift sanctions on Syria. 

U.S. sanctions have included financial penalties on any foreign individual or company that provided material support to the Syrian government and prohibited anyone in the U.S. from dealing in any Syrian entity, including oil and gas. Syrian banks also were effectively cut off from global financial systems. 

Iran is preparing its next step in what one security expert warns remains its chief objective: developing a nuclear weapon.

‘Repair, reconstitute and rebuild is going to be the modus operandi of the Islamic Republic of Iran,’ Behnam Ben Taleblu, Senior Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran Program told Fox News Digital. ‘It just depends on how are they going to be doing it? While flirting with the international community? Are they going to go dark totally altogether?

‘All of this remains to be seen,’ he added.

Spokesman for the regime, Fatemeh Mohajerani, confirmed this week that the Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites had been ‘seriously damaged’ following the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear program last month. 

Questions remain over the extent of damage that was incurred, as well as skepticism over whether Iran was able to move any enriched uranium or centrifuges away from the heavily guarded sites prior to the strikes. 

Though the Trump administration said on Wednesday that it had ‘obliterated’ the three facilities it struck, and has fervently rejected reports suggesting that Iranian officials may have been able to transfer some elements of the regime’s coveted nuclear program, Israeli officials confirmed this week that they are continuing to monitor the situation closely.

Experts in the U.S. and Israel have said they believe Iran is still assessing the extent of the damage from the ‘bunker busting’ bombs, and that the regime will look to recover and repair what it can — meaning it may be looking to buy time.

‘No doubt, the regime will still have a diplomatic strategy designed to rope-a-dope anybody, and to find as much time as possible for this government to do that,’ Ben Taleblu said.

The Iranian regime this week suggested it remained open to negotiations with the U.S. after President Donald Trump signaled that the talks could begin as soon as next week, though multiple Iranian officials said that that timeframe was overly ambitious. 

‘I don’t think negotiations will restart as quickly as that,’ Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a CBS News interview. ‘The doors of diplomacy will never slam shut.’ 

But the regime also took steps to further hinder the UN nuclear watchdog — which is tasked with tracking all nation’s nuclear programs — and suspended all interaction with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Wednesday. 

That same day, the State Department condemned the move, and spokesperson Tammy Bruce said it was ‘unacceptable that Iran chose to suspend cooperation with the IAEA at a time when it has a window of opportunity to reverse course and choose a path of peace and prosperity.’

Iran has limited IAEA access in the past and Ben Taleblu argued Tehran will likely look to do this again as it attempts to hold on to any bargaining chip it can.

‘The Islamic Republic of Iran’s next step, and likely most dangerous capability right now, is its diplomatic capability,’ the Iranian security expert argued. ‘This is the capability of the regime to either enter negotiations with a weak hand and leave with a strong hand, or try to prevent a military victory of its adversaries from becoming a political victory. 

‘If negotiations do take place between the U.S. and the Iranians, be they direct or indirect, the Iranians are going to be dangling IAEA access. This is already their most important weapon,’ he added. 

Ben Taleblu explained that using the IAEA as a bargaining chip not only enables Iran to play for time as it looks to re-establish its nuclear program, but to sow division in the U.S. by creating uncertainty. 

‘By diminishing the monitoring and by circumscribing and even cutting IAEA access to these facilities, the regime is trying to make America have to rely on intelligence alone,’ he said. ‘And as you see from the very politicized debates over the battle damage assessment, relying on intelligence alone without sources on the ground inspecting the sites, inspecting the facilities, documenting the fissile material, can lead to drastically different conclusions being taken by similar but not the same intelligence organizations or representatives.’

Ultimately, Iran is not going to give up on its nuclear ambitions, Ben Taleblu warned, noting that Tehran’s security apparatus completely changed during its war with Iraq in the 1980s. 

‘Everything that we face from the regime that is a security threat was started then — the ballistic missile program, the drone program, the maritime aggression, the transnational terrorist apparatus and the nuclear program all have their origins in the 1980s,’ he said.  ‘By resurrecting this nuclear program, the Islamic Republic was not engaging in a science fair experiment. 

‘The Islamic Republic was seeking an ultimate deterrent,’ Ben Taleblu continued. ‘It was seeking an ultimate deterrence because it had a vision for what the region and the world should look like, and it was willing to put foreign policy muscle and the resources of its state behind that vision.’

The expert on the Iranian regime warned that Iran’s 40-year ‘obsession’ with developing its nuclear program to achieve its geopolitical aims is not going to change because of U.S. military intervention. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend this week’s BRICS Summit in Brazil, marking the first time the Chinese leader has missed the gathering of major emerging economies. The abrupt decision has triggered widespread speculation about internal political dynamics within China and the fraying cohesion of BRICS itself.

China’s official explanation — a ‘scheduling conflict’ and the fact that Xi already met with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva earlier this year, according to the South China Morning Post — has been met with skepticism. Premier Li Qiang will attend the summit in Xi’s place, continuing a recent trend of Xi scaling back his appearances on the global stage.

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said Gordon Chang, an expert on U.S.-China relations. ‘There are many other countries at the BRICS summit, not just Brazil. To me, it’s extremely significant that Xi Jinping is not going. It suggests turbulence at home — there are signs he’s lost control of the military and that civilian rivals are reasserting power. This is a symptom of that.’

Bryan Burack of the Heritage Foundation agrees that Xi’s absence underscores deeper issues: ‘It’s another indication that BRICS is not going to be China’s vassalization of the Global South.’ He noted that countries like Brazil and Indonesia have recently imposed tariffs on China over industrial overcapacity and dumping, moves that suggest widening rifts within the group.

‘China is actively harming all those countries for the most part, maybe with some exceptions, through its malign trade policies and dumping and overcapacity.’

Tensions with India and global trade pressure may also be factors

Some analysts point to rising China-India friction as a contributing factor in Xi’s decision to skip the summit. 

‘China has been at war with India for decades, essentially,’ Burack said. ‘These are fundamentally opposing interests. It’s difficult to see China changing its behavior in the near term, and that will keep tensions high.’

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to take a leading role at the gathering, potentially another deterrent for Xi’s attendance.

Another key leader — Russian President Vladimir Putin — is only expected to address the group by video. 

BRICS: United in name, divided in decades-long tensions 

Formed by Brazil, Russia, India and China and later joined by South Africa, BRICS was envisioned as a non-Western counterweight to G7 dominance. It has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE and, most recently, Indonesia, strengthening its economic footprint.

Economist Christian Briggs highlighted BRICS’s massive scale: ‘BRICS now comprises 12 full members and up to 23 when counting partners. Collectively, they account for over 60% of the world’s GDP and around 75% of the global population. They control vast natural resources and a growing share of global trade flows.’

Yet despite its scale, the bloc remains ideologically and strategically fragmented. ‘It’s a group of countries that hate each other,’ Burack said bluntly. ‘China is harming many of them through unfair trade practices. There’s not a lot of incentive for real unity.’

Currency ambitions and strategic divergences

The alliance’s aspirations to challenge the U.S. dollar through alternative payment systems and a potential BRICS currency have gained media traction — but experts caution against overestimating this threat.

‘There’s been a lot of fearmongering about a BRICS currency,’ said Burack. ‘But the interests of these countries are completely divergent. There’s more smoke than fire when it comes to a currency challenge to the dollar.’

Chang echoed this skepticism: ‘The only country that can challenge the dollar is the United States. Weakness in the dollar is due to what we are doing domestically, not what the BRICS are doing.’

Still, Briggs offered a counterpoint, arguing that BRICS members are already reshaping global currency flows.

‘They’re moving away from the dollar into digital yuan, rupees, rubles. China has launched a SWIFT alternative already adopted by the Caribbean banking sector — trillions of dollars are shifting.’

Is BRICS still a threat to U.S. influence?

While its cohesion remains questionable, BRICS poses a long-term challenge to U.S. influence — particularly in regions where Washington has retreated diplomatically and economically.

‘China filled the void left by the U.S. in places like Africa,’ said Briggs. ‘Now it controls about 38% of the world’s minerals. Meanwhile, Russia’s economy has doubled despite sanctions, because they preemptively reduced reliance on the dollar.’

Yet Chang sees India as a brake on any aggressive anti-Western tilt. ‘BRICS has an ‘I’ in it—and that’s India. Modi doesn’t want to be part of an anti-Western bloc. As long as India’s in BRICS, the rest of the world is safe.’

A missed opportunity — or a calculated power move?

To some, Xi’s no-show signals instability in Beijing. To others, the opposite: it demonstrates confidence in China’s dominance over the other BRICS members.

‘He doesn’t have to be there,’ Briggs contended. ‘Xi’s power allows him to delegate. China is trading with nearly 80% of the world now. He’s moving the agenda forward even in absentia.’

What’s clear is that BRICS continues to evolve — its internal contradictions as visible as its geopolitical ambitions. Whether Xi’s absence marks a retreat or a recalibration remains one of the key questions hovering over the summit in Brazil.