MISSION, Texas - For far too long, 80 years, we have been held hostage by the Mexican government who failed over and over to give us the water that they owed us on a timely basis.
Previous to this administration, and previous to me becoming your congresswoman, nothing had been done. That is why we lost our sugar cane industry, which meant the loss of over 500 jobs and millions upon millions of dollars.
This is unacceptable and will not happen under my watch. That is why I worked very closely with the President and Secretary Rollins to make sure that we not only delivered the 280 million dollars to our South Texas farmers who had been devastated because of the loss of water, but we also got the Mexican government to come to the table and deliver us over a year's worth of water in 6 months.
I am very proud to say that they are on their way to fulfilling their obligation, which is to deliver 420,000 acre feet of water by the end of this month. This is huge, but our work does not end there. Why? Because we need to put teeth on the 1944 water treaty. I will be honest with you, what I am attempting to do in working with Secretary Rollins and with the president will be of historic positive consequence. Why? Because it has never been done before. To take a treaty like the 1944 water treaty and attempt to put it into a larger agreement, which is a USMCA agreement, has not been done before. But it will be done because this president and secretary Rollins knows how important our agriculture community is. They understand that food security is a matter of national security and that is why we are working together.
But we need your help. We need the public to step in and make comments on the US trade representatives website to urge them to put the agreement into the USMCA agreement so they can go on to the following website, https://comments.ustr.gov/s/ before Nov. 3. Please submit your comments asking for the 1944 water treaty to be included into the USMCA agreement.
This is our call to action. This is the time when the Rio Grand Valley can step up into the national light and really highlight the need for this treaty to be in the USMCA agreement.
We are in the process of gathering information or I should say the U.S. trade representative is in the process of gathering information so that we can begin the negotiations. Negotiations will actually be after the new year and that is when you will see our Secretary Rubio, Secretary Rollins at the table with the mexican government talking about the USMCA agreement. That is why it is so important that the entire valley participate and have their voices heard. This is our chance.
When I first took this position, the first thing people said was, "We need water. We need water for our communities and infrastructure. We need water for our agriculture producers."
Currently under the 1944 water treaty, there are no consequences to the Mexican government if they fail to deliver the water to us. And we have seen it over the last 80 years where they have failed over and over. And who suffers? Not the mexican farmers, our farmers, our fellow community members right here in the Rio Grand Valley.
By tying it to the USMCA now we have consequences if the mexican government does not give us the water that they owe us. As I like to say there are other levers that we are able to push and pull to strongly encourage them to deliver the water on time.
This is the moment that we can put our voice on the national stage and so we need to take advantage of it. We put these public comments. I am still in talks with the U.S. trade secretary. In fact, the way that this occurred is that my team and I met with the U.S. trade representative last month and urged them to open up the portal for us. They are listening. They are aware. Now, they need to hear from our community and we should have the goal of a million voices right here from the Rio Grande Valley having their voice heard on the national stage about the 1944 water treaty.
Editor's Note: The above commentary formed part of the U.S.-Mexico Water Treaty discussion Monica De La Cruz gave at a press conference hosted by the Texas International Produce Association.
