US President’s recognition of Rabat’s sovereignty over Western Sahara gave bilateral relations “unprecedented momentum,” Moroccan King Mohammed VI has said
Morocco has named one of its largest road projects after US President Donald Trump, describing the gesture as an expression of “deep appreciation” for his role in strengthening relations between Washington and Rabat.
King Mohammed VI informed Trump in a letter reported by the state-run Moroccan News Agency (MAP) on Sunday that the 1,055km Tiznit-Dakhla Expressway would be renamed the “Donald J. Trump Highway.”
The monarch said that bilateral relations, traditionally rooted in friendship and loyalty, have become particularly “vibrant and fruitful” during Trump’s two presidential terms.
”Your historic recognition, in 2020, of Morocco’s sovereignty over its Sahara will forever be etched in the memory of Moroccans, from one generation to the next,” the king wrote in a previously undisclosed letter dated July 2.
Trump thanked the monarch in a July 26 post on his Truth Social platform, describing the decision as a “great honor” and expressing hope that he would travel the highway’s entire length.
The road connects Tiznit in southern Morocco with Dakhla in the disputed Western Sahara region, passing through Guelmim and Laayoune along the Atlantic coast.
Rabat considers Western Sahara part of its territory and took control of most of the former Spanish colony after Spain withdrew in 1975. The Algeria-backed Polisario Front seeks to establish an independent Sahrawi state. A UN-brokered ceasefire took effect in 1991, but efforts to hold a referendum on the territory’s status have stalled.
Morocco submitted an autonomy proposal for Western Sahara to the UN Security Council in April 2007. Under the plan, local authorities would exercise executive, legislative, and judicial powers, while the territory would retain the Moroccan flag and currency. Rabat would remain responsible for foreign policy, national security, and defense.
The US became the first country to formally recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara during Trump’s first term in 2020. Washington has maintained that position, with Trump recently reiterating support for Morocco’s autonomy proposal as the only basis for resolving the dispute.
Morocco is considered one of America’s oldest allies and its longest-standing partner in Africa. Rabat says it became the first country to recognize US independence in 1777. The two countries signed a Treaty of Peace and Friendship in 1786, establishing what Washington describes as its longest unbroken treaty relationship.
The US designated Morocco a major non-NATO ally in 2004. A bilateral free-trade agreement took effect two years later, making Morocco the only African country with such an accord with Washington. US exports to Morocco reached $5.5 billion in 2025, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative.
Morocco also hosts African Lion, the US Africa Command’s largest annual military exercise on the continent.
The close relationship has also featured in speculations surrounding the recent mass migrant crossings from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. El País reported that some members of Spain’s governing coalition suspected that the crisis may have been orchestrated by Rabat with US and Israeli support to pressure Madrid over its foreign policy, including its opposition to military action against Iran. Neither Washington nor Rabat has responded directly to the allegation.
The decision to rename the highway has drawn criticism from Western Sahara Resource Watch, an advocacy group that describes the disputed territory as “Africa’s last colony.” Its representative Roberto Cantoni told Spanish newspaper El Independiente that the renaming was intended “not to promote trade with the US, but to inflate the president’s ego.”
Algeria, which supports the Polisario Front and rejects Rabat’s proposal to grant Western Sahara autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, has not officially responded to the highway’s naming. However, Algerian daily El Watan accused Morocco of “selling off its diplomacy on the altar of flattery toward Trump.”
