WASHINGTON (AP) — For more than four centuries, the body of water stretching from Florida through Texas and into Mexico has been known as the Gulf of Mexico. But in a matter of weeks, President Donald Trump and White House officials have sought to rewrite the map by calling it the Gulf of America — and insisting others do the same.
“It is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Feb. 12. “It's very important to this administration that we get that right, not just for people here at home, but also for the rest of the world.”
But Trump's effort to rewrite the map of the world is far more complicated than such comments suggest. Here's what goes into a name.
Did Trump rename the Gulf of Mexico?
Before his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump announced plans to change the Gulf of Mexico’s name to the “Gulf of America” — and signed an executive order to do so as soon as he was in office.
Can he change the name on his own?
He can change the name for official U.S. purposes, but he can’t dictate what the rest of the world calls it.
The International Hydrographic Organization — of which both the United States and Mexico are members — works to ensure all the world’s seas, oceans and navigable waters are surveyed and charted uniformly, and also names some of them. There are instances where countries refer to the same body of water or landmark by different names in their own documentation.
It can be easier when a landmark or body of water is within a country’s boundaries. In 2015, then-President Barack Obama approved an order from the Department of Interior to rename Mount McKinley — the highest peak in North America — to Denali, a move that Trump has also reversed.
Are others following Trump's lead?
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has brushed off Trump's move, saying the president can use whatever name he prefers for the U.S. portion of the water.
“For us, it is still the Gulf of Mexico, and for the entire world it is still the Gulf of Mexico," she said shortly after Trump signed the executive order.
Google Maps began using “Gulf of America” for users in the U.S., saying it had a “longstanding practice” of following the U.S. government’s lead on such matters. Users in Mexico will see Gulf of America and maps will display both names for those logging in from other countries. The other leading online map provider, Apple Maps, has changed to “Gulf of America” on some browsers.
The AP said last month that it would continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico while noting Trump’s decision to rename it as well. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP says it must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.
AP style is not only used by the agency. The AP Stylebook is relied on by thousands of journalists and other writers globally. The White House has blocked AP reporters from covering several events after demanding the news agency alter its style.
Why is Trump doing this?
Since his first run for the White House in 2016, Trump has repeatedly clashed with Mexico over a number of issues, including border security and the imposition of tariffs on imported goods. He vowed then to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and make Mexico pay for it. The U.S. ultimately constructed or refurbished about 450 miles of wall during his first term.
How did the Gulf of Mexico get its name?
The body of water has been depicted with that name for more than four centuries, an original determination believed to have been taken from the Native American city of “Mexico.”
Has renaming the Gulf of Mexico come up before?
Yes. In 2012, a member of the Mississippi Legislature proposed a bill to rename portions of the gulf that touch that state's beaches “Gulf of America,” a move the bill author later referred to as a “joke.” That bill, which was referred to a committee, did not pass.
Two years earlier, comedian Stephen Colbert had joked on his show that, following the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it should be renamed “Gulf of America” because "we broke it, we bought it.
Are there other international disputes over the names of places?
There's a long-running dispute over the name of the Sea of Japan among Japan, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, with South Korea arguing that the current name wasn't commonly used until Korea was under Japanese rule. At an International Hydrographic Organization meeting in 2020, member states agreed on a plan to replace names with numerical identifiers and develop a new digital standard for modern geographic information systems.
The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century, although usage of “Gulf” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The government of Iran threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company's decision not to label the body of water at all on its maps.
There have been other conversations about bodies of water, including from Trump’s 2016 opponent. According to materials revealed by WikiLeaks in a hack of her campaign chairman’s personal account, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2013 told an audience that, by China’s logic that it claimed nearly the entirety of the South China Sea, then the U.S. after World War II could have labeled the Pacific Ocean the “American Sea.”
Americans and Mexicans also diverge on what to call another the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.
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Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.
Meg Kinnard, The Associated Press
