Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is expected to meet with US President Donald Trump this Tuesday during the first visit by a Lebanese leader to the US in 17 years.
Lebanese president Michel Suleiman met with president Barack Obama in 2009.
The Iraqi prime minister was in the US last week, and Trump met with the Syrian president in Turkey earlier this month. As such, key Arab states are holding high-level meetings with the US this month.
Aoun’s office said he would meet with Trump and hold “meetings and consultations with a number of American officials to discuss the situation in Lebanon and ways to consolidate the ceasefire [and] Israel’s withdrawal from the Lebanese areas it occupies,” UAE-based news site Al-Ain News reported.
Aoun met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday.
First visit in 17 years as LAF troops set to deploy in pilot zones
The visit by Aoun comes as Lebanon is supposed to be sending troops to pilot zones in southern Lebanon near where IDF troops are deployed. In theory, that means the Lebanese army will control these areas rather than Hezbollah. So far, it has had little success at confronting or disarming Hezbollah.
It is not clear if the Lebanese government is even willing to confront Hezbollah. Aoun’s priority appears to be getting Israel to withdraw or redeploy. Israeli officials have vowed not to withdraw, but some limited redeployment might happen.
The US has been carrying out strikes against Iran over the past eight days. It is not clear if this might affect the Aoun meetings. It could also affect Hezbollah, because Iran might want to use Hezbollah or the Houthis in Yemen to increase pressure on Israel.
“Aoun, who served as the commander of Lebanon’s US-backed army before being elected president last year, is the first Lebanese head of state in nearly 20 years to visit the White House, where he will meet Trump face-to-face for the first time,” Saudi Arabia-based newspaper Arab News reported.
The focus is on displaced Lebanese who want to return to southern Lebanon, the report said. Aoun’s messaging is about getting the US to pressure Israel, it added.
“A Lebanese official said Aoun would present Trump with a written proposal on how to decommission Hezbollah’s massive arsenal,” Arab News reported, citing Reuters. “The official said Aoun believes only Trump possesses the leverage needed to pressure Israel to withdraw its troops and help Lebanon restore its sovereignty.”
While Aoun and Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have spoken about creating a monopoly on weapons, they have not actually moved to disarm Hezbollah. Instead, they disarmed some Palestinian factions last year.
Lebanon is saddled with sectarian politics that makes any change hard. It also has aging politicians, such as the Shi’ite leader Nabih Berri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who prefer the status quo.
According to Arab News and Reuters, Aoun’s “presidency’s first year was defined by a government bid to secure the disarmament of Hezbollah, which was founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982 and has fought numerous wars with Israel. Lebanese troops deployed in southern Lebanon to collect Hezbollah weapons caches, in line with a ceasefire after the 2024 war and without opposition from a weakened Hezbollah.”
“Aoun was born in Sin Al-Fil, a suburb of eastern Beirut,” the report said. “His family originally hails from south Lebanon. His first army assignment was as a platoon commander in the army rangers in 1985, during Lebanon’s 1975 to 1990 civil war.”
Aoun elected after Lebanese political crisis, Hezbollah hijacked nation's politics
Aoun was elected after one of Lebanon’s many political impasses that meant the country lacked a president since 2022. Hezbollah has hijacked Lebanese politics over the past decade and a half, basically meaning it was hard for the country to have a president not backed by Hezbollah. Lebanon’s sectarian politics mean the president must be a Christian.
Israel and Lebanon have held talks with US backing. The most recent talks were in Rome. They are aimed at enabling Lebanon to deploy to pilot zones. On Saturday, a Lebanese army officer was killed in an explosion in Lebanon.
The IDF is not going to withdraw very much, according to statements by Israeli officials.
“The framework agreement does not specify a timetable for withdrawal, while Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that their forces will not withdraw from a ‘security zone’ 10 kilometers deep from their borders until Hezbollah is disarmed, a step that analysts doubt the Lebanese state’s ability to accomplish,” Al-Ain News reported.