US eyes continued partnership with Jordan — ambassador

AMMAN — US Ambassador in Amman Henry T. Wooster on Thursday said that his country is looking forward to continuing partnership with Jordan on important work, renewing commitment to supporting the Kingdom over the next years.

In a video message on the occasion of the New Year, the diplomat said: "2021 was hard, despite that the United States and Jordan continued to partner on important work."

He added: "People around the world joined Jordanians in celebrating the centennial year of the Hashemite Kingdom. The United States looks forward to joining you for the next 100 years.” 

“When he was newly elected, President Biden looked to Jordan for the wise counsel that it has always given Washington, which is why in July His Majesty King Abdullah was the first Arab leader invited to the Biden White House,” the envoy said. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken prioritised coming to Amman for his first overseas trip to the Middle East to advance Jordanian-US partnership for economic growth, the ambassador said. 

"Together, our countries continue taking measures that reinforce stability and well-being for the people of this region,” Wooster stressed.

“Also together we worked on problems specific to Jordan,” he said, highlighting cooperation in the water sector, saying: "As Jordan's dams ran dry this summer, USAID partnered with the government of Jordan to help bring new water supply to Jordan and to better manage scarce water resources."

The United States has offered support to the Jordanian government to achieve economic recovery that included a donation of $40 million for the Estidama (sustainability) programme, and a multi-donors fund that gathered more than $100 million to support urgent financial aid going to the National Aid Fund.

"We cooperated to ensure that Jordan has enough vaccines for everyone through donating half a million Pfizer shots and trained some 17,000 healthcare employees to work in frontlines, in addition to raising the number of daily PCR tests to 50,000 tests per day. Life saving equipment was distributed to hospitals all around Jordan. American and Jordanian military medical experts have worked together to develop intensive care and trauma care systems of the Royal Medical Services," he added.

He also highlighted efforts towards bolstering the private sector’s growth and supporting Jordanian talents and resources to create jobs and bring a safer future.