The United States signed a free trade agreement with Morocco on Tuesday which has been heralded as an important step towards the completion of a further set of free trade deals with the Middle Eastern states.
Currently, US products entering Morocco face an average tariff of over 20 percent, while Moroccan products are subject to an average tariff of 4 percent as they enter the United States. During the negotiations, the US will seek to eliminate tariffs and other duties on trade between Morocco and the United States on the broadest possible basis, improve intellectual property rights protection, and eliminate barriers in Morocco's services markets.
“Step by step, the administration is building bridges of free trade with economic and social reformers in the Middle East,” US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick noted during a signing ceremony with Taib Fassi-Fihri, Morocco's minister-delegate of foreign affairs and cooperation.
The Bush administration has also signalled its intent to soon sign a free trade agreement with the small Gulf State of Bahrain.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowan Republican commented: “I’m very pleased with the signing of the US-Morocco Free Trade Agreement. With 95 percent of industrial tariffs going to zero upon implementation of the agreement, the US manufacturing sector will immediately profit from it.”
“Moreover, this agreement is a step forward in President Bush’s goal of establishing a Middle East Free Trade Area by 2013,” he added.
Grassley hopes to move the deal through the Senate “as quickly as possible”.
