"He's got the potential - he's a real leader," Trump said on Air Force One after meeting Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday had tea with a former jihadist who until recently had a $10 million US bounty on his head.

Five months after its liberation from the police state of Bashar al-Assad, Syria sometimes looks like a country in civil war. Sectarian clashes have turned into street battles with rockets and mortars.

But the country must also modernise monetary policy, rewire banking and reconnect with global markets, argues Abdulkader Husrieh

Syria's economic turmoil worsened in 2019 when neighbouring Lebanon, with which it has extensive economic and financial ties, also descended into crisis. Damascus then introduced a plethora of exchange rates for different transactions to safeguard scarce hard currency.

Shara, who once led a branch of Al Qaeda, was the first time in 25 years that the leaders of the United States and Syria had met.

But there’s one notable exception that’s emerged in the past 24 hours: Trump’s new Syria policy.