Top line
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the Gulf of America on federal documents “in recognition of this thriving economic resource and its critical importance to the economy of our country,” but Trump doesn’t. I do not have the authority to rename the body of water on a global scale.
President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Key facts
The order signed Monday tells the Secretary of the Interior (Trump appealed to North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum) to change the name of the body of water in the Names Information System database geographical locations of the country within 30 days.
The move will prompt all federal agency maps, contracts and other documents to use the new name to refer to the Gulf, which borders about 1,700 miles of coastline each of the United States and Mexico.
Trump’s order, titled Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness, also demanded that North America’s highest peak, currently called Denali, revert to the name Mount McKinley, the name of the Alaskan mountain before 2015.
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An American flag is stuck in the sand along a Gulf of Mexico beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Can Trump rename the Gulf of Mexico?
Yes and no. It is the responsibility of the federal government to change the names of landmarks in the Geographic Names Information System, but it is an internal database that only impacts titles to UNITED STATES. The Office of the Secretary of the Interior does have the authority to change the names of American landmarks – former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, for example, targeted the names of hundreds of places that included “derogatory” terms – but he can’t do it. change the names of things outside the country.
Will other countries call it the Gulf of America?
Other countries are not obliged to accept this change. When Trump first suggested the idea, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded sarcastically and proposed that North America be renamed “América Mexicana” or “Mexican America.” Mexico’s refusal to use a different name won’t affect Trump’s ability to have the body renamed on federal documents, but it likely means the new name won’t be officially used internationally unless both countries reach an agreement.
Surprising fact
This wouldn’t be the first time countries have referred to the same body of water or landmark under different names. Texas and Mexico refer to the river that divides the two nations along the Texas border differently: Americans call it the Rio Grande and Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo. The body of water between South Korea and Japan is called the “East Sea” by South Korea and the “Sea of Japan” by Japan. The name of the body of water bordering Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, commonly known as the South China Sea, is also controversial. Some countries, such as Vietnam, call it the “East Sea”, in China, the “South Sea”, and other people in the region advocate calling it the “Southeast Asian Sea”. Even within the U.S. government, disagreements are not uncommon: Federal agencies generally call the crucial gulf between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula the Persian Gulf, but the military often calls it the Arabian Gulf — the name used by some from the United States. major Arab defense allies, most of whom are bitter rivals of Iran.
What will Google Earth call the Gulf of America?
Google Earth’s policy is to display the common name of a body of water based on the nations that border it. If all neighboring nations agree, the same name will appear in all searches and in all languages. But if countries dispute the proper name of a body of water, the policy is to display both names, with each label placed closer to the country or countries that use it.
Who owns the Gulf of Mexico?
Although Trump claims that “we do most of the work there, and it’s ours” in reference to the Gulf of Mexico, international waters do not belong to any country. The United States exercises territorial control over the Gulf extending out to 12 nautical miles from the shoreline, as established by presidential proclamation in 1988 and in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the States -United States claims sovereignty in the area from the airspace to the water column and into the subsoil. But beyond that, the Gulf of Mexico is not under American control.
Crucial quote
“This is our abyss. The rightful name is America’s Gulf, and that’s what the whole world should call it,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said earlier this month.
Further reading
