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Trump: mediocre arsonist as incompetent but rich firefighter, making water pressure great in Texas [1]
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Date: 2025-04-11
Trump’s ignorance of droughts is no different than his claim that turning the spigot of northern California water supplies helped southern California firefighters (it didn’t). Money is not like water, despite Trump’s water pressure expertise.
Since the 1990s, concerns have been raised surrounding Mexico's ability to deliver their promised amounts of water and their frequency of falling behind schedule, placing them in debt regarding water deliveries. Prior to the early 1990s, both the U.S. and Mexico consistently delivered on their obligations, with Mexico frequently delivering more than the promised amounts of water.[13][14][15] However, a drought in the 1992–1997 delivery cycle, which was not declared at the time, forced Mexico to reduce deliveries. In 1999, Mexico unilaterally declared a drought and postponed the deliveries into the next cycle, and after a brief protest the U.S. agreed in 2002 to roll over the deficit into a third five-year cycle. The U.S. stated that international obligations have the highest priority on the river, and storing the water in the upstream tributaries for domestic use is not acceptable. By 2004, Mexico had delivered on 75% of its debt.[16]
The 2020–2025 cycle exhibited similar problems, with Mexico delivering just one year's worth of water (400,000 acre-feet[10]) by mid-2024.[17] The previous cycle that ended in October 2020 was also running with a deficit until a last-minute deal—"Minute 325" on October 22, 2020—led to Mexico agreeing to deliver its water, while the U.S. agreed to provide water to communities below the Amistad Dam for domestic and municipal use, but not for agriculture.[18] Minute 325 also envisioned the signing of a deal for the new cycle by December 2023, but Mexico refused to sign the new Minute due to domestic opposition in Chihuahua that led to the Mexican National Guard killing a farmer in a riot in October.[10][19] In the process of negotiations held in 2020, Texas Governor Greg Abbott asked the U.S. federal government to intervene, citing how the U.S. delivers Mexico four times the amount that Mexico owes to the U.S. annually.[19]
Despite reaching an agreement in November 2024 for Mexico to deliver water more regularly and earlier in the cycle, by early 2025, trends suggested that Mexico would be unable to deliver on its water release obligations, contributing to a severe water crisis in the Texas part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley.[14][15] To apply pressure, the U.S. government began withholding USAID and U.S. Trade and Development Agency funding to Mexico.[20] On March 20, 2025, the U.S. refused to deliver water to Mexico for the first time.[21] On April 10, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump, as part of his administration's tariffs, threatened to apply tariffs and sanctions on Mexico if they did not work to deliver the obligated water on time. In response, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stated that Mexico had been complying with the treaty "to the extent water is available", citing a three-year drought.[22][23]
en.wikipedia.org/...
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