Morocco: America’s Oldest Friend

Morocco and the United States have a special and long-standing relationship.

When America fought for and won independence from the British, Morocco was the first country in the world to recognize the newly formed United States of America. When the Americans faced trouble from Barbary pirates operating from the coasts of North Africa, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson signed the Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship in 1786, America’s oldest non-broken friendship treaty to this day (and Morocco remains an American military ally). George Washington wrote a letter to the Moroccan Sultan in 1787 even further strengthening ties between the two countries, and the U.S. consulate in Tangier is the first property that the U.S. government has ever owned abroad.

During the First World War, Moroccan troops fought alongside U.S. Marines in France. Then the relationship gets even more interesting.

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the U.S. entered the conflict in WWII, which country did America first invade? Morocco.

On November 8, 1942, 35,000 American troops under the command of the infamous General Patton landed in Safi and two other Moroccan ports as part of pincer movement to capture Casablanca, the opening salvo of the North African Campaign.

The Americans were not fighting the Moroccans, however. Morocco had been assimilated into the French colonial empire some 30 years previously, and despite British and American overtures prior to the invasion French troops headquartered in Morocco tried (unsuccessfully) to fight off the Allies, the allegiance of the French generals in Africa was unfortunately stronger to the German-backed Vichy government in occupied France than to the promise of a free France.

(Interestingly for military buffs, the North African invasion as part of Operation Torch was also America’s first major airborne assault, with troops flown all the way from Britain to capture airfields.)

After the capture of Morocco, American President Roosevelt immediately sent a message to Morocco’s Sultan Mohammed V promising a thriving partnership once the Germans were defeated, and that indeed has largely been the case. Trade and relations between the two countries have been strong, and the U.S. happily endorsed Morocco’s independence in 1956.

Sultan Mohammed V’s successor, King Hassan II, personally met with American Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton, with Clinton flying to Morocco’s capital of Rabat in 1999 to attend his funeral.

And since September 11, 2001, the United States and Morocco have been stalwart allies, with religious extremism virtually nonexistent in this predominantly Muslim country.

It’s not every day you get a friendship that lasts 222 years and counting, and perhaps it’s only fitting that the first country to recognize America would also become its longest standing friend.