Texas will supposedly get up to 202,000 acre-feet of water from Mexico in accordance with the 1944 Treaty beginning this week, the week of Dec. 15, according to the USDA.
However, it is unclear where this water will come from because Mexico doesn’t have that volume of water in its international holdings. Depending upon source, it is also unclear how useful this release will be to Texas agriculture.
“They don’t have a whole lot of the international storage and international reservoirs,” says Sonny Hinojosa, current water advocate and former general manager at the Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 2 in San Juan, Texas. He does note Mexico has some water in its internal reservoirs, however.
During her daily morning address on Dec. 15, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, told the press “we are not giving away water that we don’t have or that would affect the Mexican people.”
Backstory to the 202,000-acre-feet announcement
USDA’s Dec. 12th announcement was the main outcome of a series of meetings between the U.S. and Mexico that was kicked off on the afternoon of Dec. 8, when President Donald Trump demanded Mexico release 200,000 acre-feet of water by Dec. 31 on threat of an additional 5% tariff in a Truth Social post.
“Mexico continues to violate our comprehensive Water Treaty, and this violation is seriously hurting our beautiful Texas crops and livestock,” he wrote.
This is a reference to Mexico’s failure to deliver 1.75 million acre-feet of water to Texas via the Rio Grande by the end of the most recent five-year cycle, which ended on Oct. 24. According to the 1944 treaty, when Mexico fails to deliver the full amount within the five-year cycle, the remainder is carried over into the next cycle as debt. Water debt must be paid in addition to the current cycle’s volume.
USDA’s Dec. 12th announcement included that there are ongoing negotiations between the countries to finalize a plan by the end of January 2026 for Mexico to repay its outstanding water debt of roughly 800,000 acre-feet.
Appreciation from Texas
The announcement was widely welcomed by Texas agricultural groups.
“I applaud President Trump for putting American farmers first and holding Mexico’s feet to the fire to get this treaty honored,” said Texas’ Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller in an announcement on Dec. 14.
“For years, producers in the Rio Grande Basin have been shorted the water they are legally owed, causing the loss of crops, jobs, industries, and livelihoods,” he added. “Let me be clear: Texas farmers expect Mexico to fully meet its obligations — not just today, but for years to come. Water is the lifeblood of agriculture.”
In a letter to the editor sent out midday Dec. 15, various Texas produce and row crop groups expressed gratitude to the Trump administration, including U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau. But the co-signed groups and their leaders also urged quick implementation and consequences for inaction.
“While Mexico did deliver some water this year, thanks to pressure by the Trump administration, it was not enough to cover the debt,” wrote Dante Galeazzi, president and CEO of the Texas International Produce Association.
“This new understanding must be quickly implemented. The U.S. must not allow Mexico to delay fulfilling its obligations, or it risks Mexico overusing water resources that should be shared. A tactic taken by Mexico for years without penalty or accountability,” Galeazzi continued.
Dale Murden, president of Texas Citrus Mutual, similarly applauded the move, but urged the administration to push Mexico to “honor this new agreement or face consequences.”
“The short- and long-term impacts on Texas farmers are beyond the data on paper,” Murden wrote. “Livelihoods have been uprooted, and the region’s agricultural landscape may never be the same again. Meanwhile, Mexico continues to expand its agricultural production that directly competes with U.S. producers … with water that should have been delivered to the U.S.”
Where will that water come from?
The co-signed groups and Hinojosa, who helped provide data for the meetings held between the U.S. and Mexico, all noted details from USDA on this new water transfer are currently unknown. What is known is that Mexico doesn’t have 202,000 acre-feet of water in the international dams.
According to public records (based on Nov. 29 conditions, most recent) from the International Boundary and Water Commission, the U.S. side of the group that adjudicates the water treaties between the U.S. and Mexico, Mexico’s water ownership at the Amistad and Falcon dams amounts to just under 166,000 acre-feet.
Sheinbaum told reporters Dec. 15 that Mexico “examined different river basins to determine how we could meet the United States’ request.”
Hinojosa reports hearing that the near-term repayment could include water from the Rio San Juan, which fits with Sheinbaum’s description. However, the Rio San Juan is not one of the original six Rio Grande tributaries covered by the 1944 treaty. It is also a problematic source, according to Hinojosa.
“We can’t capture or store that water,” he said. This means that such water would be of little use to farmers, but could be used for municipal purposes. “We’ve utilized it in the past, but [Mexico has] restrictions as far as what they can release.”
Those restrictions mean that the full 202,000 acre-feet could not come from that source alone, and certainly not by the end of December. Regardless, the agreement could be too little, too late for Texas growers who have already suffered tremendous losses, Hinojosa said.
“Once again, our spring crops are planted in late February, and I know our farmers; they’re not going to go on a limb and invest unless they know that we have the water,” he said. “So we might be looking at a fourth year of limited row crops. Now, if this continues and we get that 202,000 acre-feet, maybe it’ll help our vegetable farmers come next September or October, but we’ll be facing a fourth year of shortage.”
Mexico’s perspective
The U.S. and Mexico do not agree on the why behind the short water deliveries. While stakeholders on the U.S. side have pointed to growth of Mexico’s, especially Chihuahua’s, irrigated agriculture in recent years, Mexico has given a variety of reasons for not delivering sufficient water in a timely way.
During her Dec. 9 press meeting, Sheinbaum summarized the reasons why Mexico had not delivered more water in the past cycle as two-fold; Mexico’s own water needs and the limiting factor of the pipeline that carries water to the Rio Grande. However, she said the governors of the Mexican states, including Chihuahua, are united “to find the best agreement with the United States.”
On Dec. 15th, she answered questions specifically about the details of the meetings, saying: “[the U.S.] requested that a certain amount of water be delivered by December, and we said that this was not possible, not only because it’s physically impossible, but also because it would have consequences if done in such a short time. So, an agreement was reached to deliver it over a longer period.”
She also cited drought and lack of rain in Mexico.
“So, an agreement was reached in this regard,” she said. “The agreement is typically for a five-year period, but now we will determine, based on the amount of rainfall during the rainy season, how to make up for the water that wasn’t delivered in the previous five years due to the drought.”
Sheinbaum also brought up the possibility that the 1944 Treaty, which she noted is very favorable to Mexico, might need to be renegotiated.
“Various experts say that Mexico may no longer be able to comply with this treaty, since the exceptional drought provision has been invoked in the last three cycles,” she said on Dec. 10. “It seems that the drought situation, or the lack of water to comply with the treaty, is no longer an exceptional one, but rather a reality.”
