On December 22, the President proclaimed that new tariffs will be effective January 1, 2006 for products entering from Morocco under terms of the U.S. Morocco Free Trade Agreement (USMFTA).  On June 15, 2004, the United States entered into the USMFTA, which was approved by the Congress in section 101(a) of the United States-Morocco Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act (the "USMFTA Act") (Public Law 108-302, 118 Stat. 1103) (19 U.S.C. 3805 note).  The text of the USMFTA can be found at:  http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Agreements/Bilateral/Morocco_FTA/FInal_Text/Section_Index.html.

Prior to the USMFTA, most U.S. imports of wood products from Morocco were eligible for duty-free entry as a beneficiary country under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).  The USMFTA provides that U.S. wood product imports from Morocco are immediately eligible for duty-free treatment including those items previously eligible for GSP treatment.  As a result, 51 items that were previously dutiable (many of which were eligible for duty-free entry under GSP) under Chapter 44 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS) (wood and wood products) are now permanently eligible for duty-free treatment.  Many of the 51 impacted items are plywood or other panel products, which had been subject to duties of 8 percent.

Most U.S. wood product exports to Morocco were subject to duties generally ranging from 25 to 50 percent prior to the USMFTA.  Following the USMFTA, U.S. exports to Morocco will enter duty-free after either a five-year or a nine-year tariff reduction schedule.  Some items such as logs and unprocessed wood products will be subject to duties which will be reduced over five years, while more highly processed products will have duties reduced over a nine-year period.  The greatly reduced duties will enable U.S. exporters to better avail themselves of the $300 million Moroccan wood import market.