After declaring earlier this month that the “Gulf of America” had a “beautiful ring” to it, newly installed President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico in one of his first moves as he retakes the White House.
The purely performative act is red meat for Trump’s fan base, who believe the 47th president’s “America First” platform is the right way forward for the United States.
“We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. That covers a lot of territory, the Gulf of America,” Trump said at a January 7 press conference. "What a beautiful name. And it’s appropriate. It’s appropriate. And Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country.”
Trump’s incoming press secretary also confirmed on X, formerly Twitter, that he will sign an executive order reverting Mount Denali to its previous name, Mt. McKinley, which President Barack Obama changed in 2015 at the behest of Alaskan officials.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, has dubbed the “Gulf of America” idea “crazy.”
The world’s ninth-largest body of water has been called the Gulf of Mexico since 1607. However, as Prof. Jon Taylor of UT-San Antonio told Houston Public Media, Trump "could actually direct federal agencies to use the name Gulf of America.”
Trump acolyte Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia, has pledged to introduce a bill renaming the Gulf, claiming, “It’s our gulf. The rightful name is the Gulf of America and it’s what the entire world should refer to it as."
If Trump does manage to change the Gulf of Mexico’s name to the Gulf of America, other nations would not be obligated to do the same.
More broadly, the International Hydrographic Organization oversees the charting of “the world’s seas, oceans and navigable waters,” setting “standards in order to promote uniformity in nautical charts and documents,” according to Roll Call. Both the U.S. and Mexico are members of the IHO.
In response to Trump’s purported plan, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested retooling her country’s maps to rebrand the U.S. as “América Mexicana.” In 2012, Rep. Steve Holland, a Mississippi Democrat, introduced a satirical bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in response to Republican attacks on immigration.
Trump’s notion is little more than a distraction, to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York.
“I think that we’ve got to focus on the issues that matter to the American people: housing costs are too high, grocery costs are too high, insurance costs are too high,” he said. “Utility costs are too high and child care costs are too high. We have to build an affordable economy for hard-working American taxpayers.”
