Sheinbaum responds to Trump on Tijuana sewage dispute

Mexico City — Following Donald Trump’s demand yesterday for the Mexican government to immediately solve sewage discharges from the Tijuana River that cross the border, President Claudia Sheinbaum stated that the U.S. President is not well informed on the matter, as several agreements have already been reached.

“Indeed, for many years, part of Tijuana’s sewage was discharged into the Pacific. So, what is being sought is to avoid this pollution, and there was already a first agreement and now there is a second agreement; that is, perhaps he was not sufficiently informed. We cannot determine what the reason was for his post, but in particular – in that case – there are already two agreements that must be established,” Sheinbaum commented during her morning press conference.

President Donald Trump demanded yesterday that the Mexican government immediately solve sewage discharges from the Tijuana River that cross the border into the United States, contaminating the coast of southern San Diego County.

Two days after threatening to impose an additional tariff on Mexican products arriving in the U.S. due to Mexico’s failure to deliver water from the Rio Grande basin to Texas, Trump stated that discharging untreated water into the Tijuana River now poses a threat to California.

“Mexico must solve its water and sewage problem immediately. This represents a real threat to the residents of Texas, California, and the U.S.!” Trump said on the social network Truth Social, accompanying his post with an undated news video of the Tijuana River.

This morning at the National Palace, the federal leader explained that since the López Obrador administration, a first agreement was signed for the sanitation of the Tijuana River, and she also stated that the United States has pending work to expand a treatment plant in San Diego, California.

“There is an agreement on this issue, a first agreement that was signed with President López Obrador, which resulted in the construction of a treatment plant that was built by military engineers and is already operational. And recently, there was an agreement between Secretary Alicia Bárcenas and the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; they were in Mexico, went to Tijuana, and signed a memorandum of understanding that must be finalized in the agreement that will now be signed.

“What does it consist of? They have to build, they have to expand a treatment plant that is in San Diego. They still haven’t done it; they have to comply with that, and in our case, we have to carry out other works that we will begin next year, a series of collectors and the expansion of the treatment plant that is already operational. That is the objective,” she added.