The United States has stepped up pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah, making clear that the future of ties between Beirut and Washington now hinges on strict adherence to deadlines for stripping the Iran-backed group of its weapons, according to U.S. and Lebanese sources cited by Nidaa Al-Watan newspaper.

Over the past week, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has sharply escalated its rhetoric through direct presidential statements, forceful messaging from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and unusually explicit signals from Congress. The message has been consistent and uncompromising: Lebanon’s government will be held responsible if progress on Hezbollah’s disarmament falters.

U.S. officials now view the disarmament timetable not as a long-term aspiration, but as a core pillar of Washington’s Lebanon policy. A growing consensus within the administration and on Capitol Hill suggests that failure to meet these benchmarks would trigger a new phase of pressure, potentially extending to the Lebanese Armed Forces and to international security guarantees that have, until now, helped prevent a wider confrontation with Israel.

American officials describe the dismantling of illegal weapons and the restoration of full state sovereignty as “non-negotiable,” saying the issue has become “central to every U.S. conversation with Beirut and to all coordination with Israel and France.” A former U.S. diplomat told Nidaa Al-Watan that the longstanding notion that Lebanon could function as a sovereign state while its army coexisted with a heavily armed Hezbollah had effectively collapsed, adding that Washington was no longer prepared to “finance that fiction.”

That warning has now been reinforced legislatively. The U.S. Congress recently passed the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which more explicitly conditions future military aid to Lebanon on the army’s willingness and capacity to confront Hezbollah.

The law requires the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command to establish concrete benchmarks for assessing progress in disarming the group and to outline mechanisms for suspending assistance if the Lebanese army is deemed “unwilling to act.”

Officials at the Pentagon and congressional aides said the reporting requirements were designed to close the gap between diplomatic language and realities on the ground.

“For years, we treated the Lebanese army as a partner against Hezbollah while designing programs that avoided any direct confrontation,” said one senior congressional aide. “This law forces the system to confront whether that partnership is real.”

A senior U.S. Treasury official told the newspaper that Washington is no longer willing to accept the old formula of containing Hezbollah in the south while tolerating its quasi-military infrastructure elsewhere. The official said the Lebanese army’s mandate must now be the disarmament of Hezbollah across the entire country.