TRIPOLI, Libya – The United States has opened a trade office in Libya, authorities in Tripoli said Monday, in the latest step in a concerted push to normalize relations after three decades of confrontations and sanctions imposed by Washington on the Arab nation.

The opening of the trade section follows U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's landmark visit and meeting with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi last month.

“Finally, America realizes that trade ships are the best way to strengthen relations with Libya,” said Libyan deputy minister of trade, Altaher Serkiz.

That visit came about after Gadhafi renounced terrorism in 2003 and the government agreed to pay compensation to the families of the 1988 bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Rice was the first American secretary of state to visit Libya since John Foster Dulles in 1953 and the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit since then-Vice President Richard Nixon in 1957.

Washington withdrew its ambassador from Libya in 1972 after Gadhafi renounced agreements with the West and vilified the United States in speeches and public statements. Washington cut off diplomatic relations with Libya after a mob sacked and burned the American Embassy in 1979.

According to a statement from Libya's trade ministry, U.S. Assistant Commerce Secretary Israel Hernandez, Libyan officials and businessmen from both countries attended the office's opening on Sunday.

At the ceremony, Hernandez said the U.S. wants to buy from Libya, and wants Libya to buy more from the United States. He added that a U.S. embassy in Tripoli will be built soon.

Plans to send a full-fledged U.S. ambassador and build a new embassy have been hung up in Congress over concerns that Libya has not fulfilled its promises to compensate terror victims.