France's Macron urges Syria's interim government to join a US-led coalition fighting extremists

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron urged Syria's interim government to cooperate with a U.S.-led coalition fighting against extremist groups in that region as he hosted a conference Thursday on the Mideast country's future.

Macron’s comments come amid uncertainty over the United States’ commitment to the region. Thursday's conference in Paris among European and Arab nations was the third on Syria since the repressive government of Bashar Assad was ousted in December, and was attended by Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani.

“Syria must very clearly continue to fight against all the terrorist organizations that are spreading chaos,” Macron said. “If Syria decides to offer cooperation” with the international coalition Inherent Resolve, France would support the move, he added.

The Paris conference of foreign ministers and other officials from participating countries was meant to coordinate efforts to support a peaceful transition, as the new government in Damascus underlines its desire to improve relations with the West

Macron also called on the Syrian interim government to “fully integrate” the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the Syrian transition, calling them “precious allies.”

“I think your responsibility today is to integrate them and also to allow these forces to join in,” he said.

On Thursday, Syrian organizers of a conference in Damascus to chart the country’s political future said those talks will include all segments of Syrian society except for the Kurdish-led administration in the northeast and Assad loyalists.

Most of the country's former insurgent factions have agreed to dissolve and join the new Syrian army and security services, but the Kurdish-led SDF so far has so far refused to do the same. SDF forces have been clashing with Turkish-backed groups in northern Syria, and the Kurds are concerned about losing political and cultural gains they have made since carving out their own enclave in the northeast during the country’s civil war.

Discussions are ongoing between the SDF and the government in Damascus.

More aid is crucial to achieve a peaceful reconstruction during the post-Assad transition. The country needs to rebuild housing, electricity, water and transportation infrastructure after nearly 14 years of war. The United Nations in 2017 estimated that it would cost at least $250 billion, while some experts now say the number could reach at least $400 billion.

With few productive sectors and government employees making wages equivalent to about $20 per month, Syria has grown increasingly dependent on remittances and humanitarian aid. But the flow of aid was throttled after the Trump administration halted U.S. foreign assistance last month.

The effects were particularly dire in the country’s northwest, a formerly rebel-held enclave that hosts millions of people displaced from other areas by the country’s civil war. Many of them live in sprawling tent camps.

The freeze on USAID funding forced clinics serving many of those camps to shut down, and nonprofits laid off local staff. In northeastern Syria, a camp housing thousands of family members of Islamic State fighters was thrown into chaos when the group providing services there was forced to briefly stop work.

A workshop bringing together key donors from the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, the United Nations and key agencies from Arab countries will be held alongside the conference to coordinate international aid to Syria.

Uncertainty also surrounds the future of U.S. military support in the region.

In 2019 during his first term, Trump decided on a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops from the northeast of Syria before he halted the plans. And in December last year, when rebels were on their way to topple Assad, Trump said the United States should not “ dive into the middle of a Syrian civil war.”

Now that Syria’s new leader Ahmad al-Sharaa is trying to consolidate his power, the U.S. intentions in the region remain unclear. A U.S. official attended Thursday's conference in Paris.

Asked about the U.S. position, “I’m not going to play guessing games,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said.

Given Trump’s diplomatic doctrine “to only make decisions that make America safer ... These are the words we used to address our interlocutors in the new administration,” Barrot said.

The commander of the main U.S.-backed force in Syria recently said that U.S. troops should stay in Syria because the Islamic State group will benefit from a withdrawal.

Since Damascus fell on Dec. 8 and Assad fled to Moscow, the new leadership has yet to lay out a clear vision of how the country will be governed.

The Islamic militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS – a former al-Qaida affiliate that the EU and U.N. consider to be a terrorist organization – has established itself as Syria’s de facto rulers after coordinating with the southern fighters during the offensive late last year.

Sewell reported from Beirut.

France's President Emmanuel Macron greets participants as he arrives at the International Conference on Syria at the Ministerial Conference Center, in Paris, France, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (Ludovic Marin, Pool Photo via AP)

France's President Emmanuel Macron, center, delivers a speech during the International Conference on Syria at the Ministerial Conference Center, in Paris, France, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (Ludovic Marin, Pool Photo via AP)

France's President Emmanuel Macron, center left, and on his side Syria's Interim Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani pose for a photo with participants during the International Conference on Syria at the Ministerial Conference Center, in Paris, France, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (Ludovic Marin, Pool Photo via AP)

France's President Emmanuel Macron, center, Syria's Interim Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani, left, and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock pose for a photo during the International Conference on Syria at the Ministerial Conference Center, in Paris, France, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (Ludovic Marin, Pool Photo via AP)

France's President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he delivers a speech during the International Conference on Syria at the Ministerial Conference Center, in Paris, France, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (Ludovic Marin, Pool Photo via AP)

France's President Emmanuel Macron, left, greets Syria's Interim Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani during the International Conference on Syria at the Ministerial Conference Center, in Paris, France, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (Ludovic Marin, Pool Photo via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)