The U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, signed on September 28, 2001, was the first free trade agreement signed by the United States with an Arab country (and the fourth free trade agreement as a whole, behind Israel, Canada and Mexico). Products must be made up of at least 35% Jordanian content in order to benefit from commercial benefits. [1] Under the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, Jordan is required to adopt stricter provisions for the protection and enforcement of copyrights, trademarks, patents and trade secrets. The free trade agreement will also open up the Jordanian market for services to U.S. businesses. These changes will provide, among other things, a more accessible and manageable market base for U.S. and Jordanian companies. The United States continued to cooperate with Jordan on labour standards. In 2016, the Ministry of Labour (DOL) removed Jordanian clothing from its list of products produced by child labour or forced labour, on the grounds that the incidence of forced labour in Jordan`s clothing sector had decreased significantly. The United States and Jordan have sought to build on this success through ongoing efforts under the 2013 Jordanian Workers` Working and Living Conditions Implementation Plan, signed in 2013.
The plan addresses labour problems in Jordanian garment factories, including concerns about anti-union discrimination against foreign workers, housing conditions for foreign workers, and discrimination and sexual harassment. In 2016, Jordan`s ministries of health and labour signed an agreement to ensure that labour inspections include clothing residences and thus meet one of the remaining commitments in the implementation plan; Inspections began in 2017. The United States and Jordan continued their work on the completion of the implementation plan. The United States and Jordan continue to benefit from a comprehensive economic partnership. A key element of these relations is the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, which came into force on December 17, 2001 and was fully implemented on January 1, 2010. In addition, the “Qualified Industrial Zones” (QIZs) program, established in 1996 by the U.S. Congress, provides access to the United States without a product when produced in Jordan, Egypt or the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with a certain amount of Israeli content. The Free Trade Agreement is the first trade agreement to contain substantial provisions on e-commerce, a step that should help promote a global free trade agenda in a critical sector for U.S. high-tech and multimedia companies.