From Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America: Trump renames the map, although with unlikely international consequences
In the sea of decrees signed by Donald Trump as the new president of the United States on the first day of his second term, there is one that seeks to rename the waters that bathe the southeast of the country. When Trump proposed it a few weeks ago without ever having made a feint about it, the world reacted astonished. Now, after being sworn in at the Capitol in Washington and taking office as president once again, the Republican has made his surprising proposal a reality: by executive order, the Gulf of Mexico will be renamed the Gulf of America.
It has been one of the latest items added to his political agenda, along with several other geopolitical earthquakes such as the desire to purchase Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark; add Canada as the 51st State or regain control of the Panama Canal. “America is going to reclaim its place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation in the world, inspiring the admiration of everyone. “In a short time we are going to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” he announced in his inaugural speech this Monday, causing a cascade of applause and cheers. In those same words, he indicated that he would also recover the name of the late 19th century former president William McKinley to rename Denali Mountain, in Alaska, as Mount McKinley, as it was called until 2015.
The name change of the gulf is not a tribute to the continent, but a reference to the United States of America, which in English is usually called simply America. And it will not have a foreseeable international impact either. Presidents of the United States have the authority to rename geographic regions through an executive order indicating so, and it is the United States Board on Geographic Names that must implement the change, but its jurisdiction is solely national.
The name of the Gulf of Mexico, like that of other bodies of water, is regulated by international law and two entities in particular: the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) — whose purpose is for nautical charts and documents to be uniform and has 100 members, including Mexico, Cuba and the United States, the countries that control the waters of the gulf—and the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names—the collegiate body that has the competence to discuss problems related to standardization of the names. These are the organizations that, for example, have been mediating for years in the conflict over the name of the sea that separates Japan from the Korean peninsula, which some call the Sea of Japan and others the East Sea.
Now, even if these bodies agree to debate Trump’s proposal, they are unlikely to accept his arguments for historical and legal reasons. The gulf has carried its name since 1540, when it was also called Seno Mexicano or Gulf of New Spain, and currently 829,000 square meters of the Gulf of Mexico are the Mexican exclusive economic zone, while the United States has 662,000; although both countries share agreements on the limits of maritime territory, both for navigation and economic activities. In fact, about half of the United States’ oil refining and natural gas processing capacity is located along the Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Gulf waters also supply about 40 % of the country’s seafood, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.
For these reasons, Mexico’s first response to the name change suggestion was ironic. The day after now President Trump first mentioned his idea, on January 7, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum projected in her morning press conference a map from 1607 that shows the territory of northern Mexico and part of United States mixed. “Why don’t we call it ‘Mexican America’? It sounds nice, doesn’t it? Since 1607, the Apatzingán Constitution was from Mexican America. So, let’s call him that.”
The name change of the gulf is part of the set of threats that Trump has launched against Mexico. He has accused his neighbor to the south of being “essentially” controlled by drug cartels, which he has announced will be designated as terrorist organizations, and has reiterated his threat to impose tariffs if the Sheinbaum Government fails to radically stop fentanyl trafficking to the United States.
