Mexico commits to make yearly water deliveries to US after tariff threats

Mexico has agreed to debar incurring caller deficits successful h2o transportation to the U.S. arsenic portion of a caller committedness to adhere to the presumption of the 1944 Water Treaty.

In a Tuesday societal media post, the Agriculture Ministry (Sader) said the statement “establishes a wide way successful accordance with the mechanisms provided for successful the Treaty and is the effect of sustained method and governmental work.”

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, USDA authoritative representation connected Feb. 14, 2025. (USDA photograph by Christophe Paul)

It said the program was negotiated with “full respect for the sovereignty of some countries, portion ensuring astatine each times the quality close to h2o and nutrient for communities successful our country.”

This week’s announcement comes aft President Claudia Sheinbaum and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed however to resoluteness long-standing challenges successful the absorption of h2o successful the Río Bravo basin (called Rio Grande successful the U.S.) successful a Jan. 29 telephone call. 

In caller years, Mexico has struggled to marque the required h2o deliveries, citing drought conditions fueled by clime alteration and section demand, a situation Sheinbaum reiterated during her Friday greeting property briefing.

This latest statement comes hard connected the heels of December negotiations that sought to stave disconnected a menace of tariffs, since Mexico inactive owed the U.S. conscionable implicit 865,000 acre-feet of h2o erstwhile the 2020-2025 rhythm of the pact ended successful October.

At the time, the U.S. Trump administration  blamed Mexico’s missed h2o deliveries for large harvest losses for Texas farmers. 

For its part, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said connected Tuesday that the caller committedness volition “provide greater certainty for farmers, ranchers and producers successful South Texas who trust connected accordant h2o deliveries from the Rio Grande.”

In a associated statement with the Foreign Relations Ministry, the Environment Ministry and the National Water Commission, Sader confirmed Mexico’s willingness “to warrant the transportation of a minimum yearly magnitude agreed betwixt some countries, according to the hydrological conditions of the basin and the mechanisms provided for successful the Treaty.”

The statement accounts for the proviso for some quality depletion and cultivation production, portion besides “strengthening the orderly absorption of h2o resources successful the Rio Grande basin and moving towards much predictable readying and shared work successful the look of the effects of drought, incorporating infrastructure and semipermanent adaptation actions.”

In the associated statement, Mexico reaffirmed its committedness to the h2o treaty, describing it arsenic “an instrumentality that safeguards nationalist interests, arsenic good arsenic the extortion of productive and cultivation activities successful nationalist territory.”

Mexico has agreed to present a minimum of 350,000 acre‑feet of h2o per twelvemonth to the U.S. during the existent five‑year rhythm and volition formulate a elaborate program to afloat repay each outstanding h2o indebtedness accrued during the erstwhile cycle.

Additionally, some parties volition clasp monthly meetings to guarantee timely, accordant deliveries and forestall aboriginal deficits, the USDA connection said, adding that the U.S. State Department and different national partners volition enactment intimately to guarantee satisfactory implementation.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that successful the lawsuit of aboriginal non-compliance, the U.S. reserves the close to enforce commercialized measures, including the exertion of tariffs.

With reports from Proceso, El Economista and Reuters