During his tour to Latin America in the summer of 2010, the Syrian president Bashar al Assad met with representatives of the Syrian and Lebanese expatriate communities. These meetings, many of which had been arranged in advanced by the Syrian Minister of Expatriates (Joseph Sweideh), were highly publicized in both Syrian and Latin American media outlets, signifying the importance of the occasion. According to the Syrian analyst, Ayman Abdel Nour, the visit had the purpose of “attracting investment” and “Latin America [was] an obvious choice because of [its] wealthy expatriate community.” As this paper will argue, however, the economic wealth of the Syrian expatriate community in Latin America constitutes only one aspect of the Syrian government’s interest in these communities. Based on original archival research and oral interviews conducted in Syria, Brazil, and Argentina, this paper analyzes the changing relationship between the Syrian state and its expatriate communities in South America from its independence until Al Assad’s visit to Latin America. By concentrating on the Syrian case, this paper aims at complementing Laurie Brand’s analysis of Middle Eastern state policies towards their communities abroad, namely, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia (Brand 2008).