The US president, Donald Trump, threatened this Thursday, April 10 with “tariffs and perhaps even sanctions” until he fulfills a 1944 treaty and “give Texas the water that owes him.”
This treaty establishes that Mexico and the United States share the waters of Los Ríos Grande (which Mexicans call Bravo) and Colorado, which run through the border between the two countries.
By virtue of that agreement, the United States must send an amount of water from the Colorado River every year, and Mexico must send it a part of the Rio Grande in five -year cycles. The last cycle concludes in October 2025.
However, at the time of the firm there were no future drought problems or the population increase, which has caused friction and has become a diplomatic watchmaking pump.
“Mexico has been stealing the water to Texan farmers,” denounced the Republican on its social truth platform.
In November, both countries signed an agreement destined to prevent water scarcity in the arid states of the southern United States, through a more reliable supply of river water by Mexico.
“Mexico owes Texas 1.3 million water acres-pies (…) This is very unfair and seriously harms the farmers in southern Texas,” the US president protested.
In addition, Trump accused his neighbor of the closing, last year, of the last Texas sugar for lack of water, and held his predecessor, the former Democratic President Joe Biden, of having refused “to move a finger to help farmers.”
“That is over”
“That is over!” He warned in capital letters, and recalled that in March he stopped water shipments to Tijuana.
“We will continue to intensify the consequences, including tariffs and, perhaps, even sanctions, until Mexico complies with the treaty and gives Texas the water that owes it,” he warned.
At the end of March, the State Department Office for Latin America and the Caribbean said that the United States would refuse “the request of Mexico, outside the treaty, a special water supply channel from the Colorado River to Tijuana.”
American farmers and congressmen complain that the neighboring country waits until the end of each cycle to fulfill its allocation, and in recent years it has fallen short due to drought.
Tijuana, located on the border with the state of California and turned into a nerve center of the US manufacturing industry, depends on the Colorado River for approximately 90% of its water supply.
The Colorado River, which also constitutes a vital source of water for Los Angeles and Las Vegas, has seen its flow decrease due to drought and strong agricultural consumption in the southwest of the United States, where about half of the resource is destined to raise cattle and dairy cattle.
In southern Texas, farmers fear for the future of cotton, citrus and other agricultural products.
The water dispute adds to other tensions between Mexico and the United States.
Trump imposed 25% tariffs on Mexican products for considering that Mexico does not effectively fight fentanyl traffic, a synthetic opioid that wreaks havoc in the United States. After giving and diplomatic goings, he exempted the taxes to the goods included in the treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC).
Sheinbaum is pronounced
The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, responded to the alleged water debt that her country has with the United States, as part of a treaty signed in 1944, denounced by Trump, and assured that Mexico has fulfilled to the extent of “availability” despite drought.
Given that threat, the Mexican president pointed out in a message on the social network X that was sent to the Undersecretary of the United States Department yesterday “a comprehensive proposal to meet the sending of water to Texas” within the 1944 treaty, “which includes very short -term actions.”
“There have been three years of drought and, to the extent of water availability, Mexico has been fulfilling,” Sheinbaum said.
In addition, he said that “the International Limit and Aguas Commission has continued work to identify favorable solution options for both countries.”
Sheinbaum also noted that to try an approach, he instructed the Secretaries of Agriculture and Rural Development and Foreign Relations, as well as the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources – of the Mexican Government – “that they immediately make contact” with the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Department of the United States Government.
“I am sure that, as in other issues, an agreement will be reached,” the Mexican president concluded.