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Mexico has reached a deal to deliver more water to the US under a decades-old treaty, calming a dispute that had threatened trade relations between the neighbouring nations.
Under a 1940s border accord, the US sends Mexico water from the Colorado River each year, while Mexico sends water north from the Rio Grande, with any shortfalls addressed under a special mechanism.
But Mexico had fallen behind on deliveries in the past few years amid a severe drought, angering farmers and businesses in parts of southern Texas that relied on the resource.
The US state department said on Monday that Mexico had agreed to an immediate transfer of water and a long-term plan to meet future requirements, hailing it as a victory for US President Donald Trump.
The agreement comes as the two countries are locked in talks on tariffs that Trump has imposed on US imports from Mexico.
Mexico’s leftwing President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that she had co-ordinated with governors in the border states of Coahuila, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas to agree on an unspecified quantity to send north.
“We’re delivering what we can,” she said. “It was several weeks of work to find a scheme that can give the US the water we owed without putting us at risk.”
Sheinbaum said the details of the agreement would be laid out in a statement. High levels of domestic water stress mean it is a politically sensitive issue.
Last month Trump halted water shipments to Tijuana until Mexico complied with the treaty, also threatening tariffs and sanctions.
“This is very unfair and is hurting South Texas Farmers very badly,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Sheinbaum has mostly been accommodating towards Trump, avoiding public criticism of him and acceding to his demands to try to maintain Mexico’s tariff-free access to the US under its trade deal USMCA.
At present, exporters outside the pact are subject to 25 per cent tariffs, as do finished automobile and steel and aluminium products.
While criticising Mexico more broadly, Trump has in turn mostly been complimentary towards Sheinbaum. The state department on Monday thanked her for her personal involvement in facilitating co-operation.
Mexico suffers high levels of water stress, with citizens in parts of its major cities — including the capital Mexico City — regularly going without water. As of this month, some 18 per cent of the country’s municipalities are experiencing some level of drought, particularly in the north-west, according to government data.
The issue has been a central concern for investors who mostly want to set up factories in the more water-stressed central and northern parts of the country that serve as Mexico’s industrial heartland.
The agriculture and livestock industries use the largest portion of water resources, and Sheinbaum is pushing a programme of irrigation technology for farmers.
