President Joseph Aoun will use his first meeting with President Donald Trump to seek U.S. support for restoring Lebanese control over the south, dismantling Hezbollah’s arsenal and advancing a June agreement with Israel.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is preparing to present President Donald Trump with a written plan for disarming Hezbollah as he seeks direct American pressure on Israel to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon.
Aoun is scheduled to visit the White House on Tuesday in the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders. The trip will also make him the first Lebanese president in nearly two decades to visit the White House.
The meeting comes as Lebanon confronts a renewed war, widespread displacement and a continuing struggle over whether the state can establish exclusive control over weapons held by Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Israeli forces remain deployed across part of southern Lebanon, while hundreds of thousands of Lebanese residents have been displaced following Israeli attacks. Hezbollah has rejected both the government’s direct engagement with Israel and efforts to remove the organization’s weapons.
Aoun said last week that he intends to ask Trump to “exert the necessary pressure on Israel” to carry out a U.S.-brokered agreement reached June 26.
The agreement calls for the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops, the disarmament of Hezbollah and steps toward peaceful relations between Lebanon and Israel.
A Lebanese official said Aoun will provide Trump with a written proposal detailing how Hezbollah’s extensive arsenal could be decommissioned. The president believes Trump is the only international leader with sufficient influence to compel Israel to withdraw and help Lebanon reestablish full sovereignty, according to the official.
Aoun, 62, was elected president last year shortly before Trump began his second term. His election was welcomed by the United States.
Before entering politics, Aoun commanded the Lebanese Armed Forces, which has received extensive American support. He is a Maronite Christian, in accordance with Lebanon’s sectarian political system, which reserves the presidency for a Maronite, the office of prime minister for a Sunni Muslim and the speakership of parliament for a Shiite Muslim.
A career military officer, Aoun was wounded twice and continues to carry shrapnel from his service.
His rise to the presidency followed major changes in Lebanon’s balance of power. Hezbollah had been severely weakened by an Israeli military campaign in 2024, while the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad deprived the organization of an important regional ally.
Those developments reduced Hezbollah’s influence over the Lebanese state and helped clear the way for Aoun’s election after a two-year presidential vacancy.
During his inauguration, Aoun pledged to uphold “the state’s right to a monopoly on arms.”
That commitment became a defining objective of his first year in office. Lebanese soldiers deployed throughout the south to locate and collect Hezbollah weapons caches under the terms of the ceasefire that followed the 2024 conflict.
Hezbollah, weakened by the war, did not initially resist those deployments.
The security environment changed sharply during the second year of Aoun’s presidency.
Hezbollah fired on Israel on March 2 in support of Iran after U.S. and Israeli forces began attacking the Islamic Republic. Israel responded with an extensive air and ground campaign inside Lebanon.
More than 4,300 people have been killed since the renewed fighting began, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The reported dead include nearly 800 children, women and medical workers.
The ministry’s figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants, and Hezbollah has not disclosed how many of its fighters have been killed.
Aoun responded to the outbreak of war by calling for direct negotiations with Israel, a major departure for a country that has experienced repeated Israeli invasions and military operations since 1978.
The talks produced the highest-level direct contact between Lebanese and Israeli representatives in decades.
Aoun’s decision also prompted intense criticism from Hezbollah and its political supporters.
The president defended his approach, accusing Hezbollah of initiating a destructive conflict in support of Iran rather than Lebanon’s national interests. He said the country was being devastated for Iran’s benefit.
Aoun has nevertheless declined to accept Trump’s request that he personally meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Lebanese president was born in Sin al-Fil, an eastern Beirut suburb, although his family traces its roots to southern Lebanon.
He received his first army assignment in 1985 as a platoon commander in the Lebanese army’s ranger unit during the country’s 1975-1990 civil war.
After becoming army commander, Aoun oversaw a military campaign that expelled Islamic State militants from the border region shared by Lebanon and Syria.
He later led the armed forces through Lebanon’s 2019 financial collapse, which destroyed much of the national currency’s value and deepened hardship after decades of corruption and government mismanagement.
Aoun warned during the crisis that deteriorating conditions could bring down the army, which he called “the backbone of the country.”
In an unusually political intervention for a serving military commander, he criticized Lebanon’s leadership and said soldiers, like the broader population, were struggling to afford food.
“What do you intend to do?” he asked the country’s political leaders.
His election ended the presidential vacancy that began when former President Michel Aoun’s term expired in 2022. The two men are not related.
In addition to his security agenda, Joseph Aoun has promised to pursue long-delayed economic reforms and seek accountability for the victims of the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
His White House visit now places Hezbollah’s weapons, Israel’s military presence and Lebanon’s sovereignty at the center of discussions with Trump as Aoun attempts to prevent further destruction and restore state authority over the country.
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