Fernando Camacho Servin
La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, December 14, 2025, p. 3
The Mexican government is not in a position to pay 100 percent of the liquid it owes to the United States within the framework of the 1944 Water Treaty, but it can pay 30 or 40 percent of said amount, which would be “sensible and possible,” so as not to neglect the water resources that will be needed domestically for the agricultural cycles of 2026 and 2027, estimated Miguel Ángel Montoya, an independent consultant in public policies and legislation of the water.
The expert pointed out that the Mexican authorities must update and improve their calculation methods in this area, since they currently do them “almost blindly, with formulas that should no longer exist.”
In interview with The Dayhighlighted that the treaty with the United States is not based on fixed quantities of the liquid, but rather “has the virtue of being dynamic” and can change via amending acts each year, depending on the availability of water in both countries.
Due to the above and given the drought conditions in the country, it is likely that the Mexican government has accepted that the debt with the United States “would not be paid immediately, but rather there would be agreed upon terms through a minute signed by the parties.”
As reported in this newspaper, both nations reached an agreement through which Mexico committed to releasing 249,163 million cubic meters of water for the United States starting the week of December 15. However, Donald Trump’s government alleges a debt of more than 986 million cubic meters.
According to Montoya, to calculate how much water they can deliver, Mexican authorities must have rain forecasts for the next five years, maximum 10, “because unfortunately there are no longer long cycles of 30 years.
He warned that “hydraulic science in Mexico, particularly Conagua’s calculations, are not very up to date,” as they still use concepts such as “aquifers,” when these do not exist as such, but are groundwater flows.
In aspects such as exploitation “they make an almost blind calculation on a formula that should no longer exist, and the same for rainfall.”
