There are 14 days left in the current five-year water cycle between the U.S. and Mexico. According to the 1944 water treaty, Mexico must deliver 1.75 million acre-feet of water from the Rio Grande River to Texas.
It almost certainly won’t make the total. As of Oct. 4 (most recent complete data), Mexico has only delivered 811,348 acre-feet.
“Currently, under the 1944 water treaty, there are no consequences to the Mexican government if they fail to deliver the water to us,” U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz (TX-15) said Oct. 10 at a press event hosted by Texas International Produce Association.
De La Cruz and the event’s other speakers stressed the need to give the 1944 treaty teeth by including water delivery enforcement mechanisms into the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which is up for renegotiation next year. To this end, all the speakers called for action.
“We need the public to step in and make comments on the U.S. Trade Representative’s website to urge them to put [the 1944 water treaty] into the USMCA agreement,” De La Cruz said.
Anyone interested can submit via the USTR’s comment portal, docket No. USTR-2025-0004. More detail below on specifics.
Comments can be submitted no later than Oct. 30, 2025.
The impact of late and lacking water deliveries
All speakers stressed the negative impacts of the late, lacking and sometimes non-existent deliveries of water from Mexico on Texas.
“Who suffers?” De La Cruz asked. “Not the Mexican farmers. Our farmers. Our fellow community members right here in the Rio Grande Valley.”
She referenced the loss of Texas’ sugar mill as an example of that suffering and cited negative impacts on Texas ranchers and row crop farmers. Dante Galeazzi, president and CEO of TIPA, quantified the impact for produce.
“This last year, our farmers put 30% less fruit and vegetables into the ground, not because they wanted to but because they were forced to,” he said.
This reduction, he said, was the result of tough decisions in the face of years of unpredictable, insufficient water deliveries. He added that Rio Grande-area growers are no longer able to grow water-intensive crops or crops that need specific watering intervals like broccoli or cauliflower or celery now due to the water situation with Mexico.
“Our farmers are not able to do the diverse mix that they usually can,” he said. “That creates all kinds of problems. The biggest problem is, when you have all these farmers planting the same two or three crops and that market goes down, the entire region goes down too.”
But it isn’t ag alone who suffers, according to Daniel Rivera, executive director of the Elsa Economic Development Corporation. Speaking from his experience in the ranching-heavy rural Hidalgo County town of Elsa, he said the impact of the lack of Mexico’s water deliveries ripples out into his community and beyond into Texas’ economy.
“Water drives production, labor and infrastructure; the very sectors that USMCA was designed to strengthen,” he said. “If we tie the 1944 water treaty to the USMCA, we create a system that assures predictability and accountability because, without reliable water, our region’s economic engine fails.”
Submitting USMCA Comments
Though De La Cruz said she didn’t know what water delivery enforcement mechanisms might look like if included in USMCA, she stressed the importance of making such mechanisms available.
“Please, submit your comments asking for the 1944 water treaty to be included into the USMCA agreement,” she said. “This is the time when the Rio Grande Valley can step up into the national light and really highlight the need for this treaty to be in the USMCA agreement.”
TIPA made some logistical recommendations for those in Texas agriculture who decide to submit comments, including:
- In the “Chapters” prompt, select any that apply to your situation, but also or at least select 2, 3, 10, 24, and 31
- If you are directly involved in Texas agriculture, include details such as number of acres, what you grow or raise on your operation, years in operation and number of employees you hire in your comments
Galeazzi described submitting comments as being a small time investment that could have big, beneficial impacts for the Rio Grande Valley.
“It will take 5 minutes out of your day, but if all 1.5 million citizens of the Rio Grande Valley were to take those 5 minutes, it would send a clear message to all three countries just how important this is, just how much we depend on the Rio Grande River,” he said.
“Please — citizens of the Rio Grande Valley and further afield — take the time,” he said. “Make the comments. Help save our region, save our way of life, and save our path forward.”
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