Trump freezing Syria funds in signal of US pullback, report says

June 23, 2013: In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrians investigate damages after two suicide bombings hit security compounds in Damascus, Syria.  (AP/SANA)

President Donald Trump is freezing more than $200 million in funds for recovery efforts in war-torn Syria amid a reassessment of the role the U.S. should play in the drawn-out conflict there, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The White House ordered the State Department to put the funds on hold, the report said. According to The Journal, Trump did so after reading a news report saying that the U.S. had recently committed an additional $200 million to early recovery efforts.

Exiting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pledged the money in February in Kuwait at a meeting of the coalition trying to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS).

The apparent shift comes as the fight against ISIS has reached an impasse, with the insurgent group controlling just 5 percent of the battered nation but holding fast to it and losing little ground in recent months.

The Journal said that a sped-up pullback of America from Syria could kick up concerns about yielding control of the combat-scarred country to Iran and Russia.

In the past month, U.S.-led airstrikes supporting local forces on the ground have diminished.  In January, Tillerson laid out a strategy in which the U.S. would remain in Syria for the foreseeable future to prevent an ISIS resurgence and keep Iran's influence in check.

Now, The Journal said, Trump looks to be questioning that tack. He has said he would like to see regional allies like Saudi Arabia take on more of the burden, and the White House has asked Gulf Arab states to come up with billions of dollars for Syria's recovery.

The State Department last year spent $200 million on stabilization work in Syria, including removing unexploded weapons and restoring water, power and electricity, and an additional $225 million in funds was designated this year. The freezing of some or all of those funds, plus the additional spending promised last month, could cause existing programs to halt, U.S. officials told The Journal.

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