Texas’ congressional delegation wants Trump to punish Mexico for missing key water deadline

Subscribe to The Y’all — a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state.

McALLEN — Mexico failed to deliver millions of gallons of water to South Texas farmers, in defiance of a 1944 treaty. Now, members of Texas’ congressional delegation are calling on the Trump administration to make Mexico’s failure a part of upcoming trade negotiations — including new sanctions if necessary.

Farmers and ranchers in the Rio Grande Valley are facing another year of insufficient water for their crops as the deadline for Mexico to deliver water to the U.S. under the treaty arrived on Friday, turning the country’s water deficit into a debt. After months of lawmakers pressuring Mexico into making good on its obligations, they now see the upcoming review of the U.S. trade agreement with Mexico as an opportunity to compel the state’s southern neighbor to comply.

The 1944 treaty requires Mexico to deliver 1,750,000 acre-feet of water to the U.S. from six tributaries in Mexico every five years, or 350,000 acre-feet per year. In exchange, the U.S. gives Mexico 1,500,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River every year. However, Mexico ended the five-year cycle Friday with a debt of 925,000 acre-feet, according to preliminary numbers from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

An amendment to the treaty allows the debt to roll into the next five-year cycle under times of “extraordinary drought.” It is not the first time Mexico has had to play catch-up.

“TCEQ continues to work closely with our federal partners, including the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) to have reliability and consistency under the treaty,” the state agency said in a statement.

Farmers and ranchers have been strained by the lack of water, and have limited how much they plant.

The situation has been exacerbated by drought that has impacted farmers on both sides of the Rio Grande. Mexican officials have cited the drought as the reason for its inability to make good on its water obligations.

The Texas delegation has tried to find ways to pressure Mexico to deliver more water. In April, the U.S. and Mexico signed an agreement by which Mexico committed to deliver between 324,000 – 420,000 acre-feet by the end of October. As of Oct. 11, they had delivered just 281,436 acre-feet. The International Boundary and Water Commission, the federal agency that oversees the treaty, was not able to provide updated information because of the government shutdown.

Impact on farmers

Sonny Hinojosa, a water advocate for Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 2, an entity that provides water to farmers, said the water Mexico delivered as part of the April agreement provided some relief, farmers still only have about  50% of what they need in a year, which is about a million acre-feet.

“Next spring, we may not have sufficient water to grow all our crops,” Hinojosa said. “Hurricane season came and went, we got no relief, so we’ll be facing a fourth year of water shortage.”

Because of the limited ability to grow crops, farmers aren’t able to sell as much as they did in years prior. To address the cut to their income, U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, led an effort to provide $280 million in grant funding to South Texas farmers.

The larger farming ecosystem in the Valley is suffering, said Dante Galeazzi, president and CEO of Texas International Produce Association.

The impacts extend to other businesses like trucking companies, seed and chemical companies, and insurance companies, as well as workers who harvest the crops, Galeazzi said.

“You have this big ecosystem of other adjacent businesses who also aren’t getting business because the farmers aren’t,” Galeazzi said.

Fruits and vegetable growers are also likely to lose customers like grocery stores. Once lost, he said, it will be difficult to convince those customers to come back after they found growers who were more reliable.

The citrus industry faces the greatest risk from water shortages. Farmers worry they’re headed toward a similar collapse that shuttered the Valley’s sugar industry. The last sugar mill in 2024.

Investors hope to revive the sugar mill and the Texas sugarcane industry along with it, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller announced last month.

Dale Murden, president of Texas Citrus Mutual — a trade association representing the interests of citrus growers — said the water treaty deadline is more than just a date for the farmers who rely on that water.

“It’s a test of whether we value the livelihoods of thousands of Texans who help feed our country,” Murden said in a statement. “We need the U.S. State Department to hold Mexico accountable and ensure deliveries are made on time and in full.”

Trade negotiations

Mexico must face consequences, De La Cruz said. The congresswoman wants to include enforcement of the water treaty into the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade deal between the three North American countries, which is up for review next year.

De La Cruz said she has met with the U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s team, and with the U.S. trade representatives who will be negotiating the terms of the agreement.

“Our crisis in deep South Texas affects the entire United States,” she said, suggesting the U.S. cannot rely on other countries to feed it.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo who represents the western Rio Grande Valley, agreed that the U.S. government must enforce the stipulations in the water treaty.

Mexico has failed to make good on its obligations for decades, he said.

“We’ve seen that over the years where they get behind, they pay, and then they start their clock again,” Cuellar said.

The U.S. should consider withholding water in retaliation, he said.

“We said we’ve got to cut funding for Mexico, but they didn’t even blink,” Cuellar said. “So it’s gotta be something more direct with water, something that will get Mexico’s attention.”

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was among the lawmakers pushing to withhold funds from Mexico, a measure included in a bill that ultimately did not pass.

He said he’s open to using any tool the U.S. has to force Mexico to comply, although doesn’t think the water treaty has to be included in the language of USMCA.

“We’ve seen President Trump use trade as leverage to accomplish other goals,” Cornyn said. “It doesn’t have to be included in the USMCA per se, but it can be discussed jointly or in connection with that to accomplish the goal of getting release of water.”

Cornyn, who chairs the subcommittee on international trade, customs, and global competitiveness, said including water treaty compliance into trade talks was inevitable.

“I intend to do everything I can to insist upon it,” he said.

Other solutions

Lawmakers agree that solutions must go beyond the enforcement of the current treaty.

Cornyn said the current treaty needs to be renegotiated to ensure there are periodic, annual releases of water.

“We can’t just wait for a five-year period of time and then have Mexico finally release the water at the end of that five-year period. Meanwhile, all the crops and the livestock have shriveled up and died,” Cornyn said.

Cuellar noted that even if Mexico were to deliver all the water currently owed, hydrology data released by the IBWC, shows that the international reservoirs that store water for the region have received significantly less water over the years from U.S. tributaries.

“Even if we got Mexico to put all the water back, it would not be enough,” he said, adding that leaders needed to also focus on conservation efforts and looking for other sources of water aside from the river to ensure there is sufficient water as the population continues to grow.

“We’ve got to look at secondary sources of water, because we can’t keep going this way, it’s short-sighted,” Cuellar said. “We need to do it on the enforcement, but that’s only part of the issue.”

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

Texas Citrus Mutual has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.