As reported by The Guardian, the state of Florida and the US Coast Guard (USCG) have already embraced Donald Trump's new name for the Gulf of Mexico, and have begun referring to the body of water as the Gulf of America.
The USCG and Florida's decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico comes after Trump's executive order issued on his first day in office, which asserted that the renaming of the maritime area would pay tribute to "American greatness."
Even though the name of the Gulf of Mexico has yet to be formally changed, on January 21, the USCG made an announcement that it would be deploying additional assets to a variety of location among which it named the “maritime border between Texas and Mexico in the ‘Gulf of America’”.
Ron DeSantis is also latching on the Donald Trump's new name suggestion. On January 20, when talking about a winter storm executive order DeSantis spoke of “an area of low pressure [was] moving across the Gulf of America”.
According to ABC News, Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 21 which stated: “President Trump is bringing common sense to government and renewing the pillars of American civilization. The area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico has long been an integral asset to our once burgeoning Nation and has remained an indelible part of America.”
Sheinbaum replied to Trump's initial announcement about the renaming saying: "Why don't we call the United States Mexican America? It sounds nice, doesn't it?" while showing a map from 1607 in which part of the United States belonged to Mexico.
Sheinbaum added that in 1607, the Constitution of Apatzingán called that territory ‘Mexican America’. “ So, we are going to call it that,” she said jokingly, according to Mexican media reports.
The Gulf of Mexico is an ocean basin contained between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, shared by the eastern coasts of Mexico, the southeastern United States and western Cuba.
Five Mexican states and five US states have coastlines on the Gulf, as well as two Cuban provinces. These are: Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche and Yucatán in Mexico; Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas in the US; and the Cuban provinces of Pinar del Río and Artemisa.
There are international maritime border delimitation agreements established by organizations such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea between the United States, Mexico and Cuba.
Photo: Thomas Vimare/Unsplash
This is because in the United States there are mechanisms for renaming places recognized by the federal government, such as the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN).
The purpose of the BGN is to establish and maintain the uniform use of geographic names throughout the federal government.
And although the Board does not create names for geographic places, it can approve or reject new names proposed by federal agencies, state or local governments, and even the public.
Although Trump initially did not give details of when he would carry out the name change, Republican legislator Marjorie Taylor Greene said she would introduce a bill to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico on the social network X.
"President Trump's second term is off to a GREAT start," Greene wrote. "I will be introducing legislation ASAP to officially change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to its rightful name, the Gulf of America!"
So in conclusion, the name might change for Americans, but not for the rest of the world, least of all, for Mexicans. Furthermore, this would not be the first example of a border place having a different name for the two countries…
The river that runs along the border between the United States and Mexico, and one of the most dangerous crossings for migrants, is known as the Rio Grande to Americans, but Mexicans call it Rio Bravo.
