Last October 2 marked a milestone in trade and diplomatic relations between the US and Morocco, both countries signed a “historic” military agreement to be implemented in the next decade.
The ultimate goal of the US Government is to strengthen defense cooperation and prepare the nation governed by Mohamed VI as the best-equipped North African country militarily, bearing in mind that the US Administration is already the largest supplier of weapons to Morocco.
Forbes magazine reported that “Morocco was the largest US arms customer in the Middle East and North Africa region in 2019,” and “Washington reached arms deals with Rabat worth about $ 10.3 billion last year”.
In this way, with the new headings in 2020, Morocco has designed the roadmap for the next decade in North Africa with cooperation in different areas: “Freedom of navigation, intelligence exchange and disaster response operations”, according to the Pentagon, according to sources from Rabat, the “acquisition and manufacture of weapons material”.
In this way, the Moroccan military commitment to the US machinery will strengthen in the next ten years. And Morocco will benefit from many privileges.
The first is to guarantee the “exclusivity” of US military supplies for the benefit of the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces, especially with regard to the F-16s, to which the US is introducing a series of technical and technological modifications.
Likewise, it will have the possibility to acquire the changes of the 6×6 Cougars armored tanks and the MIM-104 Patriot long-range surface-to-air missile system, exclusively for Africa.
