Mr. President, eight decades ago, the United States and Mexico signed an agreement, now known as the 1944 Water Treaty, to govern the sharing of waters of the Colorado River and the Rio Grande.
According to this treaty, the United States is required to deliver one and a half million acre feet, or just under 500,000 gallons of water from the Colorado River to Mexico each year. Similarly, Mexico is obligated to deliver 1.7 5 million acre feet to the United States from the Rio Grande River every five years.
And while the United States has dutifully held up its end of the bargain, Mexico has been delinquent on repeated occasions. Now Mexico is hundreds of thousands of acre feet behind in their required water deliveries. In the most recent cycle, which ended in October of last year, Mexico has delivered less than half of the water it was obligated to deliver under the terms of the treaty.
Furthermore, Mexico has not been consistent in their water delivery, sometimes waiting to the very end of the five year period to deliver a substantial amount of water in an attempt, ostensibly, to catch up. This uncertainty, in and of itself, has made life difficult. You can imagine for the more than 400,000 farmers and ranchers who call Texas home… imagine trying to grow crops, not knowing whether you're going to have any water for as long as four years, only to receive a huge lump sum at the end of year five. It just doesn't work out, but this is a very real dilemma faced by many of my constituents in South Texas.
Water deliveries from Mexico are vital to irrigation farming and municipal use in the Rio Grande Valley, helping generate billions in economic productivity for the region. Water shortages created by Mexico's failure to follow this treaty have wreaked havoc on the ability of farmers and ranchers to plan and attend their crops, which has, in turn, had a terrible economic cost on our entire state. In 2024 the Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, which ran the only sugar cane mill in Texas, announced they were forced to close operations after more than 51 years because of these water shortages. Five hundred American jobs were lost as a result.
If Mexico continues to fail to live up to the treaty, more and more farmers and ranchers and other producers will face the same fate. Many growers will potentially default on their financing, and they'll be unable to secure any additional financing for future crops without the ability to plan on future water deliveries. Imagine running a bank that offers credit to farmers in a community. If you know the farmer will not be able to access the water they need in order to grow their crops and have a profitable business, obviously that makes it a much riskier bet to offer them a line of credit or loan. Further delay of water deliveries could result in bankruptcies, land auctions, more lost jobs, supply chain disruptions, and higher prices at the grocery store for Americans around the country.
I'm grateful to Secretary Rubio, the Secretary of State and Secretary Rollins of the US Department of Agriculture for their leadership on this issue and for their willingness to engage with Mexico and indeed put pressure on them to hold up their end of the bargain. But South Texas farmers cannot wait, they've already suffered too much from the drought caused by Mexico's failure to live up to its obligations. The carrot approach is clearly not working.
So now it's time to bring out the sticks. For this reason, I'm introducing legislation called the Water Assurance and Treaty Enforcement for the Rio Grande Farmers, or WATER for Farmers Act, which will impose penalties in the form of tariffs on Mexico if they continue in their delinquency. This bill would establish annual benchmarks that Mexico must meet in order to be considered compliant with the 1944 water treaty. These annual benchmarks will help ensure that water deliveries are predictable for the farmers in South Texas. Waiting until the end of a five year treaty period to deliver water is neither realistic nor acceptable, and certainly not what anybody contemplated when the treaty was enacted.
This bill would also direct the Secretary of State, in consultation with the US Commissioner of the International Boundary and Water Commission and the Secretary of Agriculture, to determine each year if Mexico has met the requirements of these benchmarks. If Mexico does not, this legislation directs the US Trade Representative to impose tariffs on the shortfalls accumulated at the end of each year.
While this may seem like an extraordinary measure, Mexico has had an ample time to make things right. And, as I said, we've tried carrots. Those don't work. So now it's time for the sticks.
By imposing severe tariffs on Mexico, I hope they will pick up the pace and begin delivering the water that they are already committed to deliver, so that South Texas farmers and ranchers will have the predictability they need. South Texans, and the agriculture community there are counting on us to ensure that Mexico complies with this treaty that they agreed to way back in 1944. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this legislation, and I will not give up on this matter until the farmers in Texas are made whole.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Editor’s Note: The above remarks were delivered by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas on the floor of the U.S. Senate on May 13, 2026.
