By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

A U.S. Congresswoman from Texas is urging the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to include the 1944 Water Treaty, and provisions that ensure its enforcement, in the upcoming review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2026.

The water treaty outlines water delivery obligations between the U.S. and Mexico. The U.S. is to deliver water from the Colorado River for use in Mexico while Mexico is expected to deliver water from its tributaries back to the Rio Grande for use by farmers and communities in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

“The 1944 Water Treaty had been a problem for over 80 years,” U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-TX) told the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “This year, alongside the president, Secretary (of Agriculture Brooke) Rollins and Secretary (of State Marco) Rubio, we were able to help secure water deliveries. Mexico has now secured about 325,000 acre-feet of water that they agreed to. They agreed to 420,000-acre feet of water by October, and they’ve delivered.”

De La Cruz and other members of the Texas delegation in Washington, along with organizations like Texas Farm Bureau, have fought for years for enforcement of the 1944 Water Treaty to ensure farmers have the water they need for their crops.

Now, De La Cruz has submitted a letter to USTR Jamieson Greer asking that the water treaty be included in the trilateral trade deal when it comes up for review.

“The problem is that the 1944 Water Treaty just doesn’t have teeth,” De La Cruz said. “There are absolutely no consequences to Mexico not delivering the water that they owe us, and that’s why I wrote the letter to the Trade Secretary because we need to get teeth on the 1944 Water Treaty. Our farmers need consistent water deliveries that they can depend on.”

De La Cruz said the only way to get that done is to include the water treaty in USMCA.

“I am moving fast and furious, steadily, toward getting that into the USMCA agreement,” De La Cruz said.

The South Texas Congresswoman encouraged those in her district and beyond to submit comments to USTR.

“They’ve got to hear it from the farmers and ranchers and the public,” De La Cruz said. “We’ve got to let them know that this is not just the Congresswoman talking about the importance, but that it is the people’s voice that is urging the USTR to put it into USMCA.”

The deadline to submit comments to USTR on potential improvements to USMCA is Nov. 3.

Comments may be submitted at comments.ustr.gov/s.

“The more people who make public comments, the more powerful our argument will be for including it into the USMCA agreement,” De La Cruz said. “From the research our office has done with the Library of Congress, these treaties are not often placed into agreements such as this, the USMCA agreement, and that’s why it is so powerful that our trade secretary hear directly from our farmers and for those in our community that this is dire–that the 1944 Water Treaty belong into the USMCA agreement.”