U.S. President Donald Trump said on July 21 he would allow U.S. airline companies to resume direct flights to Lebanon decades after the United States suspended the route.
Then-President Ronald Reagan suspended flights from the United States to Lebanon following the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 by suspected Hezbollah terrorists.
“I am hereby directing my Administration to allow all U.S. airline carriers to fly directly to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after he met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the White House earlier in the day.
He added in the social media post that “hopefully, other countries will do the same.”
The U.S. president did not provide further details on the directive. But during the meeting with Aoun, Trump told reporters Lebanon had been “a very badly treated place and country” while he added that his administration would “help it a lot.”
Trump has said that during the U.S. war with Iran, Israel’s military has acted too harshly in recent strikes against the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
“Too many people have been killed. You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they’re not all Hezbollah,” Trump said during a summit in France in June, referring to his characterization of Israeli strikes in the country.
He added that Israel has been fighting against Hezbollah for “too long” and said that Israeli strikes in Beirut in June were “vicious” and “too much.”
Lebanon and Israel announced a “framework agreement” on June 26, setting a plan for Israeli forces to withdraw and for the disarmament of Hezbollah, which for decades had a strong presence in southern Lebanon. The deal’s implementation was to begin in small “pilot zones.”
Trump on Tuesday also made reference to Hezbollah, saying that he may personally speak with Hezbollah if Aoun wanted him to.
Aoun on Sunday met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said Washington will continue to endorse Aoun’s government and disarm Hezbollah.
“The Secretary commended the courage of the Government of Lebanon, under President Aoun’s leadership, for their determined effort to reclaim Lebanon’s sovereignty, disarm Hizballah and dismantle its terrorist infrastructure, and move towards peace,” the department said in a statement on July 19.
Trump ordered the Department of Transportation lift a ban on U.S. passenger air service to Venezuela in January 2026 after the U.S. military captured and extradited its former leader, Nicolás Maduro, in a military operation that same month. American Airlines said in late April that it would resume service to the country.
In 1985, TWA Flight 847 was hijacked by several suspected Hezbollah terrorists brandishing pistols and grenades during a flight from Athens to Rome, according to the FBI.
In a 17-day period, the TWA pilot was forced to travel over the Mediterranean Sea with more than 150 people on board, with the terrorists threatening to kill the passengers unless hundreds of Lebanese nationals were released by the Israeli government, the FBI said.
