Trump announces direct US flights to Lebanon after meeting President Aoun

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he has directed his administration to permit U.S. airline carriers to fly directly to Lebanon. The decision came shortly after a bilateral meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House. Trump lauded President Aoun's efforts in transforming Lebanon, stating that direct flights would encourage Americans to visit the nation's "beautiful land."

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After meeting with the President of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, who has done a remarkable job working to transform his Country, 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. Hopefully, other Countries will do the same. Enjoy!

In a post on Truth Social, Trump expressed optimism that other countries would follow the U.S. initiative. He remarked on the strong ties between the two leaders, noting they had been in touch through representatives. Trump described Lebanon as a country that has been "mistreated for a long period of time," highlighting its people as "great intellectuals."

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I think that Lebanon has been a very mistreated country for a long period of time. It's an amazing group of people- professors, doctors, lawyers, great intellectuals and it has been hard for many, many decades... We're going to help it a lot.

During their meeting, Trump and President Aoun also discussed "concrete plans" for U.S. assistance in helping Lebanon remove Hezbollah. Trump indicated that these plans were already in place and that Lebanon was becoming more self-sufficient.

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We'll be speaking about that today with your president, and we have some very concrete plans already in store for that, with others going in and helping. But they're also becoming much more self-sufficient, and we will be speaking about that.

Addressing regional normalization efforts, President Trump praised the success of the Middle East peace frameworks, known as the Abraham Accords. He signaled that more nations were expected to join the accords soon, emphasizing Lebanon's potential role within this framework.

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The Abraham Accords have been, I think, a tremendous success. I think you're going to see a lot of countries joining pretty soon. As you know, we have our original group, and it's so successful for them... I think Lebanon has a very important place.