US envoy doubles down on support for Syria's government and criticizes Israel's intervention

BEIRUT (AP) — A U.S. envoy doubled down on Washington's support for Syria's new government, saying Monday there is “no Plan B" to working with it to unite the country still reeling from years of civil war and wracked by new sectarian violence.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Tom Barrack also criticized Israel’s recent intervention in Syria, calling it poorly timed and saying it complicated efforts to stabilize the region.

Barrack is ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, with a short-term mandate in Lebanon. He spoke in Beirut following more than a week of clashes in Syria's southern province of Sweida between militias of the Druze religious minority and Sunni Muslim Bedouin tribes.

Syrian government forces intervened, ostensibly to restore order, but ended up siding with the Bedouins before withdrawing under a ceasefire agreement with Druze factions. Hundreds have been killed in the fighting, and some government fighters allegedly shot dead Druze civilians and burned and looted homes.

Neighboring Israel intervened last week on behalf of the Druze, who are seen as a loyal minority within Israel and often serve in its military. Israel launched dozens of strikes on convoys of government forces in Sweida and struck the Ministry of Defense headquarters in central Damascus.

Over the weekend, Barrack announced a ceasefire between Syria and Israel. Syrian government forces have redeployed in Sweida to halt renewed clashes between the Druze and Bedouins, and civilians from both sides were set to be evacuated Monday.

Barrack told the AP that “the killing, the revenge, the massacres on both sides” are “intolerable,” but that “the current government of Syria, in my opinion, has conducted themselves as best they can as a nascent government with very few resources to address the multiplicity of issues that arise in trying to bring a diverse society together.”

At a press conference later, he said Syrian authorities “need to be held accountable” for violations.

Regarding Israel's strikes on Syria, Barrack said: “The United States was not asked, nor did they participate in that decision, nor was it the United States' responsibility in matters that Israel feels is for its own self-defense."

However, he said Israel's intervention "creates another very confusing chapter" and “came at a very bad time."

Prior to the violence in Sweida, Israel and Syria had been in talks over security matters, while the Trump administration had been pushing them to move toward full normalization of diplomatic relations.

When the latest fighting erupted, “Israel’s view was that south of Damascus was this questionable zone, so that whatever happened militarily in that zone needed to be agreed upon and discussed with them,” Barrack said. “The new government (in Syria) coming in was not exactly of that belief.”

The ceasefire announced Saturday between Syria and Israel is a limited agreement addressing only the conflict in Sweida, he said. It does not address broader issues including Israel's contention that the area south of Damascus should be a demilitarized zone.

In the discussions leading up to the ceasefire, Barrack said “both sides did the best they can” to reach agreement on specific questions related to the movement of Syrian forces and equipment from Damascus to Sweida.

“Whether you accept that Israel can intervene in a sovereign state is a different question,” he said.

He suggested that Israel would prefer to see Syria fragmented and divided rather than a strong central state in control of the country.

"Strong nation-states are a threat — especially Arab states are viewed as a threat to Israel," he said. But in Syria, he said, “I think all of the the minority communities are smart enough to say, ‘We’re better off together, centralized.’”

Later Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on X that Israel’s strikes “were the only way to stop the massacre of the Druze in Syria, who are brothers of our Druze brothers in Israel.”

Katz added: “Whoever criticizes the attacks are not familiar with the facts." It was not clear if he was responding to Barrack’s comments.

The violence in Sweida has deepened the distrust of minority religious and ethnic groups in Syria toward the new government in Damascus, which is led by Sunni Muslim former insurgents who unseated longtime autocratic ruler, Bashar Assad in an offensive in December.

The attacks on Druze civilians followed the deaths of hundreds of civilians from the Alawite minority, to which Assad belongs, earlier this year in sectarian revenge attacks on the Syrian coast. While interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has promised to protect minorities and punish those who target civilians, many feel his government has not done enough.

At the same time, Damascus has been negotiating with the Kurdish forces that control much of northeast Syria to implement an agreement that would merge the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces with the new national army.

Barrack, who spoke to SDF leader Mazloum Abdi over the weekend, said he does not believe the violence in Sweida will derail those talks and that there could be a breakthrough “in the coming weeks.”

Neighboring Turkey, which wants to curtail the influence of Kurdish groups along its border and has tense relations with Israel, has offered to provide defense assistance to Syria.

Barrack said the U.S. has “no position” on the prospect of a defense pact between Syria and Turkey.

“It’s not in the U.S.’s business or interest to tell any of the surrounding nations with each other what to do,” he said.

Barrack's visit to Lebanon came amid domestic and international pressure for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to give up its remaining arsenal after a bruising war with Israel that ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement in November.

Speaking at a press conference, Barrack said the ceasefire agreement “didn’t work.”

Israel has continued to launch near-daily airstrikes in Lebanon that it says are aimed at stopping Hezbollah from rebuilding its capabilities. Hezbollah has said it will not discuss disarming until Israel stops its strikes and withdraws its forces from all of southern Lebanon.

While the U.S. has been pushing for Hezbollah's disarmament, Barrack described the matter as “internal” to Lebanon.

“There’s no consequence, there’s no threat, there’s no whip, we’re here on a voluntary basis trying to usher in a solution," he said. He added that the U.S. “can’t compel Israel to do anything” when it comes to the ceasefire.

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack meets with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, not pictured, at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the U.S. Embassy in Aukar, northern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the U.S. Embassy in Aukar, northern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the U.S. Embassy in Aukar, northern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the U.S. Embassy in Aukar, northern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during a press conference at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Morgue workers place the bodies of unidentified people killed during clashes between Bedouin clans and Druze militias, into plastic bags outside the National Hospital in Sweida, Syria, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Fahd Kiwan)

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during a press conference at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Displaced Bedouin girls who fled with their families from the town of Shahba in southern Sweida province due to clashes between Bedouin clans and Druze militias, draw on scraps of paper inside a classroom turned shelter in the town of Nahtah, in the eastern part of Daraa province, Syria, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack meets with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, not pictured, at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the U.S. Embassy in Aukar, northern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the U.S. Embassy in Aukar, northern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the U.S. Embassy in Aukar, northern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the U.S. Embassy in Aukar, northern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sluggish December hiring concluded a year of weak employment gains that have frustrated job seekers even though layoffs and unemployment have remained low.

Employers added just 50,000 jobs last month, nearly unchanged from a downwardly revised figure of 56,000 in November, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate slipped to 4.4%, its first decline since June, from 4.5% in November, a figure also revised lower.

The data suggests that businesses are reluctant to add workers even as economic growth has picked up. Many companies hired aggressively after the pandemic and no longer need to fill more jobs. Others have held back due to widespread uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump’s shifting tariff policies, elevated inflation, and the spread of artificial intelligence, which could alter or even replace some jobs.

Still, economists were encouraged by the drop in the unemployment rate, which had risen in the previous four straight reports. It had also alarmed officials at the Federal Reserve, prompting three cuts to the central bank's key interest rate last year. The decline lowered the odds of another rate reduction in January, economists said.

“The labor market looks to have stabilized, but at a slower pace of employment growth,” Blerina Uruci, chief economist at T. Rowe Price, said. There is no urgency for the Fed to cut rates further, for now."

Some Federal Reserve officials are concerned that inflation remains above their target of 2% annual growth, and hasn't improved since 2024. They support keeping rates where they are to combat inflation. Others, however, are more worried that hiring has nearly ground to a halt and have supported lowering borrowing costs to spur spending and growth.

November's job gain was revised slightly lower, from 64,000 to 56,000, while October's now shows a much steeper drop, with a loss of 173,000 positions, down from previous estimates of a 105,000 decline. The government revises the jobs figures as it receives more survey responses from businesses.

The economy has now lost an average of 22,000 jobs a month in the past three months, the government said. A year ago, in December 2024, it had gained 209,000 a month. Most of those losses reflect the purge of government workers by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

Nearly all the jobs added in December were in the health care and restaurant and hotel industries. Health care added 38,500 jobs, while restaurants and hotels gained 47,000. Governments — mostly at the state and local level — added 13,000.

Manufacturing, construction and retail companies all shed jobs. Retailers cut 25,000 positions, a sign that holiday hiring has been weaker than previous years. Manufacturers have shed jobs every month since April, when Trump announced sweeping tariffs intended to boost manufacturing.

Wall Street and Washington are looking closely at Friday's report as it's the first clean reading on the labor market in three months. The government didn’t issue a report in October because of the six-week government shutdown, and November’s data was distorted by the closure, which lasted until Nov. 12.

The hiring slowdown reflects more than just a reluctance by companies to add jobs. With an aging population and a sharp drop in immigration, the economy doesn't need to create as many jobs as it has in the past to keep the unemployment rate steady. As a result, a gain of 50,000 jobs is not as clear a sign of weakness as it would have been in previous years.

And layoffs are still low, a sign firms aren't rapidly cutting jobs, as typically happens in a recession. The “low-hire, low-fire” job market does mean current workers have some job security, though those without jobs can have a tougher time.

Ernesto Castro, 44, has applied for hundreds of jobs since leaving his last in May. Yet the Los Angeles resident has gotten just three initial interviews, and only one follow-up, after which he heard nothing.

With nearly a decade of experience providing customer support for software companies, Castro expected to find a new job pretty quickly as he did in 2024.

“I should be in a good position,” Castro said. “It’s been awful.”

He worries that more companies are turning to artificial intelligence to help clients learn to use new software. He hears ads from tech companies that urge companies to slash workers that provide the kind of services he has in his previous jobs. His contacts in the industry say that employees are increasingly reluctant to switch jobs amid all the uncertainty, which leaves fewer open jobs for others.

He is now looking into starting his own software company, and is also exploring project management roles.

December’s report caps a year of sluggish hiring, particularly after April's “liberation day” tariff announcement by Trump. The economy generated an average of 111,000 jobs a month in the first three months of 2025. But that pace dropped to just 11,000 in the three months ended in August, before rebounding slightly to 22,000 in November.

Last year, the economy gained just 584,000 jobs, sharply lower than that more than 2 million added in 2024. It's the smallest annual gain since the COVID-19 pandemic decimated the job market in 2020.

Subdued hiring underscores a key conundrum surrounding the economy as it enters 2026: Growth has picked up to healthy levels, yet hiring has weakened noticeably and the unemployment rate has increased in the last four jobs reports.

Most economists expect hiring will accelerate this year as growth remains solid, and Trump's tax cut legislation is expected to produce large tax refunds this spring. Yet economists acknowledge there are other possibilities: Weak job gains could drag down future growth. Or the economy could keep expanding at a healthy clip, while automation and the spread of artificial intelligence reduces the need for more jobs.

Productivity, or output per hour worked, a measure of worker efficiency, has improved in the past three years and jumped nearly 5% in the July-September quarter. That means companies can produce more without adding jobs. Over time, it should also boost worker pay.

Even with such sluggish job gains, the economy has continued to expand, with growth reaching a 4.3% annual rate in last year's July-September quarter, the best in two years. Strong consumer spending helped drive the gain. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta forecasts that growth could slow to a still-solid 2.7% in the final three months of last year.

FILE - A hiring sign is displayed at a grocery store in Northbrook, Ill., Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)