WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said in his inaugural speech that he will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” repeating an idea he first mentioned earlier this month at a press conference.
“America will return to its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful and most respected nation on Earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world,” he said Monday. “Before long, we will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. »
This is his latest suggestion for redrawing the map of the Western Hemisphere. Trump has repeatedly referred to Canada as the “51st state,” demanded that Denmark consider ceding Greenland and called on Panama to return the Panama Canal. Trump also spoke about resuming this vital waterway during his inaugural address.
Here’s a look at his comment and what goes into a name.
Why is Trump talking about renaming the Gulf of Mexico?
Since first running 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 then pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border and make Mexico pay for it. The United States ultimately built or renovated approximately 450 miles of walls during his first term.
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The Gulf of Mexico is often called the “third coast” of the United States because of its coastline that stretches across five southeastern states. Mexicans use a Spanish version of the same name for the gulf: “El Golfo de México”.
Americans and Mexicans differ over what should be called another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. The Americans call it the Rio Grande; The Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.
Can Trump change the name of the Gulf of Mexico?
Perhaps, but it is not a unilateral decision and other countries are not obliged to accept it.
The International Hydrographic Organization – of which the United States and Mexico are members – ensures that all of the world’s seas, oceans, and navigable waters are uniformly surveyed and mapped, and also names some of them. There are cases where countries refer to the same body of water or point of interest under different names in their own documentation.
This may be easier when a landmark or body of water is within a country’s borders. In 2015, President Barack Obama approved an Interior Department order to rename Mount McKinley — North America’s highest peak — to Denali, a decision Trump has also said he wants to reverse.
Just after Trump’s comments Tuesday, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said during an interview with podcaster Benny Johnson that she would direct her staff to draft a bill to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico, a a decision that she said would secure funding. for new maps and administrative policy documents across the federal government.
How did the Gulf of Mexico get its name?
The body of water has had this name for more than four centuries, an original determination which comes from a Native American town in “Mexico”.
Has there ever been talk of renaming the Gulf of Mexico?
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Yes. In 2012, a member of the Mississippi Legislature proposed a bill to rename parts of the Gulf that touch that state’s beaches “Gulf of America”, a move the bill’s author then described as a “joke”. This bill, which was referred to committee, was not adopted.
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 the “Gulf of America” because “We have it Broken, we bought it.
Are there any other international disputes over place names?
There is a long-standing dispute over the name of the Sea of Japan between Japan, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, with South Korea arguing that the current name was not commonly used before the Korea is not under Japanese domination. At a meeting of the International Hydrographic Organization in 2020, member states agreed on a plan to replace names with digital identifiers and develop a new digital standard for modern geographic information systems.
The Persian Gulf has been widely known by this name since the 16th century, although usage of the terms “Gulf” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many Middle Eastern countries. The Iranian government threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company’s decision not to label bodies of water on its maps at all.
There have been other conversations about water, notably from Trump’s opponent in 2016. According to documents revealed by WikiLeaks in a hack of his campaign chairman’s personal account, the Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience in 2013 that, under the logic of China claiming almost the entire South China Sea, the United States after World War II could have qualified the Pacific Ocean of “American Sea”.