Mexico and the United States on Tuesday announced an agreement under which Mexico will provide a guaranteed minimum amount of water to the US each year, aiming to make cross-border water deliveries more predictable.

Under the deal, Mexico will send at least 350,000 acre-feet of water annually to the United States during the current five-year cycle. An acre-foot is the volume of water required to cover one acre of land to a depth of one foot.

The agreement follows months of negotiations and came after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 5% tariff on Mexican imports if water deliveries were not increased.

The new arrangement marks a shift from the terms of the 1944 Water Treaty, which requires Mexico to deliver a total of 1.75 million acre-feet of water to the US from six tributaries over a five-year period. While the treaty averages out to the same annual amount, US officials have complained that Mexico often delays deliveries early in the cycle, creating water shortages for farmers in Texas before settling the obligation later.

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In exchange, the United States supplies Mexico with a larger volume of water from other sources along the western stretch of their shared border. The latest agreement is intended to smooth Mexico’s deliveries and prevent the accumulation of water debt.

Mexico’s ministries of foreign affairs, environment and agriculture confirmed the deal in a joint statement, though they did not disclose the exact figure. The statement said Mexico had agreed to guarantee an annual minimum water delivery acceptable to both countries.

While US authorities welcomed the agreement, the issue remains politically sensitive in Mexico, particularly in drought-hit northern states. Farmers in Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, have recently warned that water shortages have forced some of them to refrain from planting crops.

The deal followed a phone call last week between President Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. In December, Sheinbaum had indicated that Mexico would increase water deliveries to reduce its existing shortfall under the treaty.