Evan Ellis, research professor of Latin American studies at the college’s Strategic Studies Institute, told The Epoch Times that recent tensions over Mexico’s delinquent water deliveries have come from “years of looking the other way” on the part of the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump has requested that the United States’ southern neighbor honor its obligation to deliver 1.3 million acre-feet of water to Texas. The amount totals almost 70 percent of a five-year water commitment that’s due in October.
One acre-foot of water—one acre of water at a depth of one foot—is roughly enough to fill half of an Olympic-size swimming pool. Mexico’s average annual obligation is enough water to supply 700,000 to 1 million Texas households for a year.
In exchange, the United States agreed to provide Mexico with 1.5 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado River each year—differing from Mexico’s five-year cycle.
The Tijuana shipments that Trump said were halted were part of a non-treaty water request from Mexico.
The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere affairs said the United States denied such a request for the first time since the treaty was signed because of Mexico’s noncompliance with its water obligations.
According to the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), which handles issues related to the 1944 treaty, Mexico has failed to meet its five-year delivery obligations three times since 1992. Each of those debts was carried over to the following cycle and ultimately paid.
Mexico also fell short in average minimum annual deliveries within the 2002–2007 and the 2015–2020 cycles. Those shortfalls were met very close to the end of the cycles—in 2020, within just three days of the deadline.
Although the deliveries were ultimately fulfilled, the unpredictable nature of water deliveries from the Rio Grande has impacted water users on both sides of the border.
The current cycle for both countries ends in October, but according to IBWC data, by March 29, just 28 percent—or less than 500,000 acre-feet of water—of Mexico’s water obligation had been delivered.
In November 2024, the two countries agreed to a treaty amendment that would give Mexico more ways to meet its water obligation. Those options include providing water from the San Juan and Alamo rivers, which are not part of the Rio Grande tributaries specified in the treaty. The agreement also set up a working group to explore other sources of water.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said at a news conference on April 11, the day after Trump’s social media post announcing a delivery stoppage, that she expected an agreement in the coming days “that will allow the treaty to be fulfilled.” She called the treaty “fair.”
Sheinbaum told reporters that there would be “an immediate delivery of a certain number of millions of cubic meters that can be provided according to the water availability in the Rio Grande.”
In response to a query about whether Mexico had made that delivery, the State Department confirmed that Mexico had committed to making an immediate transfer of water, but it did not confirm that the delivery had been made.
Sheinbaum has blamed her country’s increasingly delinquent water shipments on extended periods of drought that have affected the Rio Grande.
Historically, Mexican farmers have contested attempts to increase water deliveries to the United States for fear of losing their crops.
In September 2020—before an October delivery deadline—farmers in Mexico’s Chihuahua state, which borders New Mexico and Texas, were involved in heated protests over government attempts to deliver 378 cubic meters of water to the United States, claiming that their livelihoods were at stake amid severe drought conditions. One protester was killed in clashes with the Mexican National Guard.
Downstream Dilemma
Maria-Elena Giner, then-commissioner of the IBWC’s U.S. division, told The Epoch Times on April 18 that the division is “in close contact with the administration regarding the need for Mexico to commit to predictable and reliable Rio Grande water deliveries.”“We have continued to request that Mexico make monthly deliveries and provide a specific plan outlining how they intend to make up their historic shortfall in the next five-year cycle,” Giner said.
“At the same time, we are doing everything we can to assist impacted south Texas stakeholders, including alerting growers and irrigation districts about available federal and local resources and sharing our historical data on Rio Grande hydrology.”
Giner, a Biden appointee, resigned on April 21. She will be succeeded by William “Chad” McIntosh, who previously served as acting deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under administrator Lee Zeldin.
The 1944 water agreement between the United States and Mexico was struck at a time when groundwater was abundant, and droughts weren’t as lengthy. Both nations agreed to share water from two rivers that help define the international border: the Colorado River and the Rio Grande.
Like the Rio Grande in Mexico, the Colorado River in the United States has faced extreme drought in recent years.
In addition to agriculture, factories in northern Mexico have fueled rapid population growth. In 1970, the population of the lower Rio Grande Valley was roughly 1.1 million. That number grew to more than 2 million in 2003 and was forecast to reach 4.9 million by 2030.
Pain on Both Sides of the Border
“There’s no way [Mexico] can come up with the water they owe by October. The timing is also interesting because it brings together all these issues of interdependence between nations,” Ellis told The Epoch Times. The war college professor has testified on Latin American security issues to Congress on multiple occasions.He said that Mexico is “between a rock and a hard place” and that meeting its water delivery obligations to the United States will likely come at the cost of its farmers.
“Nobody anticipated the north of Mexico, with its arid conditions, would see such a growth in agriculture or that the Southwestern United States would see the kind of growth that’s so dependent on water flows,” Ellis said.
He said that years of U.S. officials ignoring Mexico’s inability to meet its water obligations has only made the situation worse.
“How did we allow ourselves to get into this condition? The argument is that it comes from years of looking the other way to avoid straining a relationship with our economic partners,” Ellis said.
He said he believes that it became a habit for U.S. officials to look the other way, while the United States paid “more than our fair share.”
Ellis said he thinks that this method of operating has put a strain on the United States. However, Mexico’s pressing need for U.S. water delivery means that the United States has leverage with the 1944 water treaty.
“Mexico has put off reconciling this for years. Now if their government opens the [dam] floodgates, it'll impact agricultural production and their own economy,” he said.
Meanwhile, Texas producers are struggling with a water deficit as a result of Rio Grande water delivery shortages.
In May, 2024, Congress pushed for action to address Mexico’s shortfall in water deliveries.
The mill announced that it would close in February 2024, after more than five decades in operation.
Lawmakers cautioned that farmers and ranchers across South Texas remain under continued financial strain and could suffer the same fate as the sugar industry if Mexico doesn’t fulfill its water treaty obligation.
“A lack of water has already ended sugarcane production in the Valley and is putting the future of citrus, cotton, and other crops at risk.”
Rollins said the grant money should provide economic relief while the USDA seeks “long-term solutions that protect Texas producers.”
