Well, good afternoon, everyone. It is great to be back in the Valley. It is great to welcome my dear friend, the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, here. Brooke and Monica and I, we just finished a round table with farmers and ranchers here in south Texas. It was a very productive conversation.
Much of the conversation was listening to the concerns of Ag here in south Texas. And concerned Texans. And it is a water crisis that is man-made. It is a water crisis that is the direct result of Mexico's refusal to abide by their treaty obligations, in particular the water treaty of 1944.
Under the terms of that treaty, Mexico is committed to providing 350,000 acre feet of water a year, and Mexico is badly in arrears. Right now in this five year cycle, Mexico is behind 1.3 million acre feet of water. The result is devastating to South Texas farmers and ranchers. It is devastating, we've seen the sugar mill here close its doors because of Mexico's refusal to abide by that treaty. We are seeing farmers and ranchers, just about every farm and rancher around the table described the acres that they're no longer farming because they don't have the water to farm it. They described the workers that no longer have jobs because they no longer have the water to farm as South Texas needs.
Now I'll tell you I've been working hand-in-hand with Monica de la Cruz, who is a ferocious advocate for South Texas. Monica is doing a fantastic job fighting for the farmers and ranchers here. I've been working hand-in-hand with John Cornyn, fighting for the ranchers here in south Texas. And I'll tell you, in the previous administration, I had pressed repeatedly for the previous administration to lean in with Mexico, to force them to meet their treaty obligations, and unfortunately, those efforts were did not produce results. In the Biden administration, this was not a priority.
Last year, I forced a vote on the Senate floor to direct the State Department to make this a priority, to fight for Mexico to honor its obligations under the 1944 Water Treaty. We got a bipartisan majority of the Senate that voted for that amendment, and yet the Biden administration continued to fail to deliver on this front.
But I’ve got good news. There's a new administration in Washington. The world changed on January 20. I can tell you… those conversations on water and using every point of leverage we have to force Mexico to comply with the treaty has been front and center in those conversations. And I'm here to tell you right now, I believe with President Trump in office and the new administration, we are going to get the water. Mexico is going to comply. Ignoring the treaty will no longer be an option for Mexico.
Now there's also more immediate news. In December of last year, I authored a provision of legislation in the Continuing Resolution that was passed… directing the federal government, as part of emergency disaster relief, to provide relief to the farmers and ranchers here in south Texas. Specifically targeted for those farmers and ranchers who have been negatively impacted by Mexico's failure to abide by the 1944 water treaty.
The language that I wrote into the Continuing Resolution was taken verbatim from language 20 years ago that then-Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison had passed into law in a previous iteration of this battle. We took that legislation, we put it into the CR. Monica de la Cruz led the fight in the House to get it passed in the House. And we got it passed into law in December.
Now fast forward to the new administration. The new administration, President Trump, has named a phenomenal cabinet and there's no cabinet member I'm more proud of than our Secretary of Agriculture. Brooke Rollins and I have been friends for 25 years. Brooke is a Texan. She is a multi-generational farmer and rancher. She is a die-hard Aggie. I've said many times, she literally bleeds Maroon. Don't demonstrate it here, but she loves Texas A&M. By the way, her son is the brand new yell leader, which is a big damn deal. Congratulations.
And she is the first Texan in history to be the US Secretary of Agriculture. That is incredibly important, and when Brooke and I sat down with her confirmation, it was great, because when you have a dear friend that's going in the cabinet, there's much cause for celebration. But the central issue we talked about was the provision of the Continuing Resolution that we had passed into law directing emergency relief for Texas farmers and ranchers and so, in a moment, Brooke is going to be here. And Secretary Rollins has an announcement to make that is going to make a real difference to those farmers and ranchers who are hurting.
Editor's Note: The above commentary was provided by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz at a press conference on a farm south of San Juan, Texas, on March 19, 2025. He was joined at the news conference by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, and U.S. Rep. Monica de la Cruz. The three had earlier met privately with Rio Grande Valley farmers and ranchers.
