Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa has publicly thanked his US counterpart Donald Trump after the latter sent him a gift of perfume to mark their November 2025 meeting at the White House. A post shared by Sharaa’s official account on X said: "Some meetings leave an impression; ours apparently left a fragrance. Thank you, Mr. President @realDonaldTrump, for your generosity and for topping up this precious gift. May the spirit of that meeting continue to shape a stronger relationship between Syria and the United States."
Sharaa was referring to an incident during his meeting with Trump that was captured on video and went viral on social media.
The footage showed the US president spraying Sharaa and Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani with his own-brand "Victory" cologne while asking the Syrian leader how many wives he had so he could also gift them a fragrance. Both Sharaa and Shaibani appeared somewhat embarrassed.
Sharaa's latest X post was accompanied by an image showing two bottles of Trump Victory cologne - one appeared to be for men while the other was for women - and a signed note from the US leader reading: "Ahmed, They’re all talking about the picture we took when I gave you this great cologne – just in case you ran out!"
Since leading a rebel offensive that overthrew former dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Sharaa has sought to build closer relations with the US, successfully lobbying for the removal of stringent sanctions imposed under the 2020 Caesar Act .
The Syrian leader has also attempted to distance himself from his hardline Islamist past, dissolving the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group he once led. The US once offered a $10 million reward for information leading to Sharaa's capture when he was affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
Despite Sharaa's diplomatic successes with Trump, the perfume exchange and the Syrian president’s latest post have been mocked online.
On Facebook, Syrian author Rime Allaf commented: "Somewhere in Damascus, in an alternate universe, a seasoned director of communications at ministerial level, guiding Syrian presidential and governmental public affairs, would have questioned the intention behind this message and stopped this post."
In November, when Sharaa met Trump, the latter was still proclaiming his ability to make peace in the Middle East after brokering a ceasefire that was supposed to end the Gaza war.
Since then, however, Trump, alongside Israel, has launched a war on Iran that has affected the wider region.
A security deal Trump had been attempting to broker between Israel and Syria has also failed to materialise, with Israeli troops regularly making incursions into Syria, abducting citizens and destroying farmland.