FILE PHOTO: U.S. Special Envoy for Syria and Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack speaks during a session at Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya, Turkey, April 17, 2026. REUTERS/Umit Bektas/File Photo
President Donald Trump's own ambassador to Turkey publicly contradicted official U.S. policy on the Golan Heights this week, asserting that Israel holds the territory in defiance of United Nations resolutions and triggering a MAGA backlash.
Tom Barrack, who also serves as Trump's special envoy for Syria and Iraq, made the remarks in an interview Friday with Lebanese-Australian entrepreneur Mario Nawfal. His comments put him directly at odds with a signature foreign policy move of the president he serves.
"In the Golan with Syria, they still occupy the Golan against the UN resolutions, against all of the international order, which has said the Golan is Syria's," Barrack said, according to Middle East Eye.
Pushback came swiftly from far-right activist Laura Loomer, a close Trump ally, who posted on X that Barrack "should resign for his lack of understanding of U.S. foreign policy." She called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to correct the ambassador and claimed, without evidence, that Barrack was "compromised by Arab money."
The rupture is jarring given Trump's own record on the issue. On March 25, 2019, Trump signed a proclamation declaring that "the United States recognizes that the Golan Heights are part of the State of Israel," reversing decades of American policy alongside a beaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel seized the strategic plateau from Syria during the 1967 war, then formally absorbed it under Israeli law in 1981. That annexation has never won international recognition, and U.N. resolutions continue to demand an Israeli pullback to the June 4, 1967, line.
Washington had stood alone in endorsing the annexation until this month, when Colombia became the second nation to formally acknowledge Israeli control of the Golan on Aug. 10.
Barrack's contradiction landed as the Trump administration is escalating pressure elsewhere in the region. Trump announced an "unprecedented" economic warfare campaign against Iran this week, promising an "economic D-Day" aimed at forcing Tehran to abandon its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, meanwhile, told state media that "the entire world approved our victory and the U.S. is hated."