WATER for Farmers Act
The provisions, in plain language.
The Secretary of State must determine annually — within 30 days after each year of a five-year treaty cycle — whether Mexico has delivered the required 350,000 acre-feet of Rio Grande water to the United States that year, and must formally certify a 'water delivery shortfall' if it has not.
The Secretary of State must take action to formalize the annual 350,000 acre-feet delivery requirement as a binding obligation under the 1944 Water Treaty framework.
Starting 90 days after a shortfall finding, the U.S. Trade Representative must impose tariffs on goods imported from Mexico; the tariffs remain in place until the Secretary of State certifies that Mexico has made up all past shortfalls.
The USTR must select which Mexican goods face tariffs by prioritizing agricultural products and goods from Mexican regions that draw on Rio Grande water, to maximize economic pressure on Mexico.
For each consecutive year of shortfall beyond the first, the USTR must escalate the tariffs — either by raising the tariff rates or by expanding the list of goods covered.
A South Texas Agricultural Compensation Trust Fund is created in the U.S. Treasury; it is automatically funded by an amount equal to all tariff revenue collected under the enforcement mechanism in Sec. 4.
Money in the Trust Fund is available without further congressional action for USDA to pay direct cash compensation to Rio Grande Valley agricultural producers who suffer economic losses from a Mexican water delivery shortfall.
USDA must calculate producers' losses within 90 days of a shortfall finding using a formula: the acre-feet shortfall multiplied by an economic value per acre-foot (accounting for crop revenue losses, cost of alternative water, and specialty-crop premiums) multiplied by an impact multiplier (accounting for indirect job and business losses).
The International Boundary and Water Commission must publicly publish monthly real-time data on treaty water deliveries, shortfall calculations, and compensation payments made to affected farmers.
Who it helps · who it burdens.
Who it helps
- Rio Grande Valley agricultural producersFarmers in the Rio Grande Valley who lose irrigation water when Mexico falls short of its treaty delivery receive direct cash compensation from the Trust Fund (Sec. 5-6), calculated from the shortfall volume, crop-value estimates, and an indirect-impact multiplier.
- South Texas agricultural communitiesThe impact multiplier in Sec. 6 explicitly includes job losses in agriculture and related sectors and closures of processing businesses, so compensation reaches beyond farm operators to the broader rural economy that depends on Rio Grande water.
Who it burdens
- U.S. importers of Mexican goods (especially agricultural products)Sec. 4 mandates tariffs on Mexican imports whenever a shortfall is certified. U.S. businesses that import Mexican goods — prioritizing agricultural products — must pay higher import duties, raising their costs.
- U.S. consumers of imported Mexican goodsTariffs imposed under Sec. 4 increase the price of affected Mexican imports; those higher costs are typically passed through to end consumers in the form of higher retail prices.
Who backs it
- U.S. general fund (via tariff-equivalent transfer)Sec. 5(b) requires Treasury to transfer from the general fund an amount equal to tariff revenues collected under Sec. 4 into the Trust Fund; the general fund therefore bears the cost of farmer compensation to the extent those tariff revenues are recycled rather than retained.
Who opposes it
- Mexican agricultural exporters and water-using industriesSec. 4(b) explicitly directs the USTR to prioritize tariffs on agricultural products and goods from Mexican regions that use Rio Grande water, making those exporters the primary economic target of the enforcement mechanism.