War on terror hurts Idaho company

BOISE – Naji Sawas was living his American dream, but he just woke up.

The Syrian-born U.S. citizen – a Boise businessman, husband and father of two – is one of the latest economic casualties in the U.S. war on terrorism.

His 6-year-old Sawas Enterprises, which exports yarns, textiles and paper to Syria, was essentially shut down last month when President Bush signed an executive order banning almost all economic relations with Syria.

Bush said Syria harbors and helps terrorists, has purchased weapons of mass destruction and keeps an unwanted military presence in Lebanon.

“I feel like I’m just coming out of anesthesia, out of surgery,” Sawas said. “Like I’m not awake yet.”

In his downtown Boise office, small and neat but densely packed with pictures, books and more, Sawas tries to explain what he has gone through since coming home in early May from a monthlong business trip to Syria.

“I’m just stuck,” he said. “I’m just sitting here. I’m just sitting here and I have to keep the wheels churning.”

Sawas dresses in a crisp blue jacket and pressed shirt – business attire seen across the Middle East.

“I don’t care about politics, see?” he said. “You know what I care about? This is what I care about,” holding up a picture of his 6-month-old son, Maxwell.

Earlier, he held up a roll of yarn – polyester too loosely spun for high-tech American factories but perfect for use in Syria’s textile industry.

His family has been in the textile business for decades. When Sawas and his wife, Robin, moved back to her family’s Idaho home, Sawas saw an opportunity in moving the unwanted yarn to where it was wanted.

He started in the spare bedroom of his Meridian house. He wondered aloud how a spool of yarn could possibly help terrorists.

“This is not hurting the Syrian people,” he said. “This is hurting us here.”

The May 14 executive order by Bush stopped virtually all trade with Syria except for food, medicine and a few other goods and services.

The move was authorized last year in the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, which passed Congress overwhelmingly – with support of all four members of the Idaho delegation.

Election headquarters for three of the four officials, ironically, share office space with Sawas Enterprises in the basement of a downtown Boise office building.

Staffers for Congressman Butch Otter and Sen. Larry Craig could not offer Sawas any immediate help.

Sawas wasn’t surprised. Though it had been legal for him to trade with Syria, he said he was always ineligible for federal loans to help him start and grow his business.

Now, Sawas said, a shipment of yarn he already paid for in North Carolina is in limbo. He lost $25,000 during the embargo’s first week alone.

“We cannot really say what Syrian customs should do,” said Idaho Department of Commerce trade specialist John Nordstrom, who put Sawas’ company in touch with the federal Bureau of Industry and Security, which manages economic sanctions and embargoes.

Idaho exports some $2 billion worth of goods and services around the world. Of that, just $291,990 worth of vegetables, mostly lentils, went to Syria last year, Commerce spokeswoman Georgia Smith said.

Sawas ships from North Carolina, so his textile products do not show up in the Idaho figures.

Idaho is not unusual. The U.S. accounts for a small part of Syria’s trade. The European Union’s share is 24 times larger.

Nordstrom said the state really is not equipped to help with such problems.

The last time Idahoans were affected by a quick U.S. sanction was when President Clinton banned most trade with India and Pakistan after the countries tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

That time, Craig successfully worked for legislation to allow Idaho’s wheat industry to resume trade.

He and Otter have spoken against economic sanctions, and the two recently visited Cuba to push for agricultural deals.

But terrorism concerns are outweighing economic ideology in Washington, D.C., Craig spokesman Mike Tracy said.

Sawas said he does not know what to do but is not ready to declare bankruptcy and apply for unemployment, as some people have advised.

“I will fight to the last breath I have,” he said.