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The Moroccan–American Treaty of Peace and Friendship (The Treaty of Marrakesh) was negotiated and signed in 1786, establishing diplomatic and commercial relations between the United States and Morocco. Unbeknownst to many Americans at the time (the population of the U.S. was just over three million), the treaty represented the first formal diplomatic treaty between the U.S. and any African or Muslim nation. It remains in force today, 239 years later.
The treaty, negotiated by American diplomat Thomas Barclay and his Moroccan counterpart Tahir Fannish in Marrakesh, was conceived by visionary leaders guiding a new and untested republic across the Atlantic as well as a Moroccan sultan, Mohammed III (Mohammed ben Abdallah), who is often credited with forging the modern Moroccan state.
History often finds larger meaning for seemingly modest events. This is likely the case for the enduring Morocco-United States relationship. In December 1789, President George Washington, having only been in office for several months, wrote to Mohammad III to acknowledge the sultan’s August 1788 diplomatic letter to the US and to explain the delayed response from the newly formed nation. Washington thanked the Sultan for his nation’s friendship and for his proactive diplomatic steps that “… make a deep impression on the United States and confirm their respect for and attachment to Your Imperial Majesty.”
Over the next 230-plus years, the two nations would find themselves at the center of critical global events—a world war, recurring regional conflicts, the upheaval of the Arab Spring, a global health pandemic and a post-Cold War order that presents ongoing challenges to a global superpower like the United States and new opportunites for a regional power like Morocco.
The 239-year relationship endures in ways large and small, from American Peace Corps volunteers teaching English in dar shababs to Moroccan financiers in New York and Moroccan actors in Hollywood. The $7 billion annual trade relationship includes citrus and automotive exports to the U.S. and animal feed and aerospace exports to Morocco.
Security & Soft Power
On security, the relationship is quite iconic. During the Roosevelt-Churchill summit in Casablanca in January 1943, US General George Patton made this entry in his diary about a car ride he shared with Sultan Mohammad V following a summit dinner held in the sultan’s honor: “I rode with Sultan and Grand Vizier to house of latter. On way Sultan said, ‘Truly your President is a very great man and a great friend of myself and of my people’.”
In 2025, the security relationship finds meaning across several domains, from combatting transnational drug trafficking to the 2020 Abraham Accords. The yearly African Lion military exercises held in southern Morocco have created a template for Maghreb regional security, and they represent U.S. Africa Command’s largest regional annual exercise.
For over a decade, Morocco has also established itself as a critical regional security partner to Europe. Following the November 2015 ISIS-inspired terror attacks on several public venues in Paris, French security services utilized critical Moroccan intelligence information to locate key members of the responsible terror cell. A week after the attacks, French President Francois Hollande received King Mohammed VI in Paris in part to thank him for Rabat’s critical help.
Late last year, four French nationals who were employees of the French Directorate General for External Security (DGSE) were freed from detention in Burkina Faso thanks to discreet intervention by Mohammad VI.
The London School of Economics recently noted the approach of Morocco’s OCP Group (the nation’s phosphate enterprise) within Africa and how it differs markedly from previous models of foreign economic investment that were heavy on sales and light on cooperative knowledge sharing. The result is new agro-business investments, customized fertilisers and sustainable agriculture practices as the continent grows hotter and soil challenges mount.
As America celebrates its independence this week, the global uncertainties of 2025 are perhaps more perplexing than those that existed in 1786 when the Treaty of Peace and Friendship was negotiated. That year, the U.S. Constitution had yet to be written and the newly formed United States possessed not a single naval ship, having disbanded the navy following the end of the Revolutionary War. The future had yet to arrive.
For both nations, tumultuous and uncertain times demanded visionary leaders like Mohammed III, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. For Morocco and the United States, the benefits of an enduring friendship are, thankfully, still accruing.
