Mexico City, Dec 12 (EFE). - The president of the National Agricultural Council (CNA), Jorge Esteve Recolons, warned this Thursday that delivering water to the United States to avoid tariffs, as proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, would cause “hunger” and severe economic damage in six border states of Mexico. “If you deliver the water, you would be putting at risk the water for human consumption and obviously water for producing (in the Mexican countryside),” he stated. The business leader noted that the measure would affect communities and producers in Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Baja California, who depend on the water resource for both basic supply and agricultural activities. According to Esteve, paying for the water to the United States would generate a serious problem for the border region, where millions of people and hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops depend on irrigation systems. “Without a doubt (the measure driven by the U.S.) would cause ‘hunger’ on the Mexican border, agro-industrialists warn,” the text states. “It would generate a migration to the United States that no one could stop,” he expressed. Washington's Pressure over the 1944 Treaty The CNA's warning comes after Trump announced on December 8 the imposition of a 5% tariff on Mexico for the alleged non-compliance in water delivery established in the 1944 Water Treaty, which has generated discontent among Texas farmers. “The United States needs Mexico to release 200,000 acre-feet of water before December 31 and the rest must be paid for afterward,” Trump said to justify the commercial sanction. “It is very unfair for U.S. farmers who deserve the much-needed water,” he added. In this context, producers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California have requested that the payment for water be included as a priority in the review of the Mexico-United States-Canada Agreement (USMCA), considering that the lack of Mexican deliveries has reduced their crops. Tariffs would also hit the U.S. consumer The president of the CNA also emphasized that the tariff measure pushed by Trump on agricultural products not only affects Mexico, as in the case of tomatoes or avocados, among other Mexican field export products. “The main affected would be the U.S. consumer,” he stated, since a tariff on Mexican exports would increase the costs of food and other goods, in a context where prices are already rising in the United States. “Daily, the prices of food and other goods and services are rising, and the measure announced by Donald Trump would generate more problems with prices,” he maintained. “Trump asks for the impossible” Esteve described the U.S. president's demand as “impossible,” given the water pressure that Mexico's producing regions are experiencing. Furthermore, he called for assuming internal responsibilities: “Analysis and research must be carried out to correct the existing problem,” he requested. The agribusiness leader insisted that any decision regarding water compliance must first consider food security and the human right to water in Mexican communities.
