President-elect Donald Trump made a rather shocking announcement during a news conference Tuesday (Jan. 7). In what many view as his newest attack on Mexico, Trump said that his administration will rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
“We’re going to change because we do most of the work there and it’s ours,” Trump said according to a report from ABC News. “It’s appropriate, and Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country.”
He also blamed Mexico for the increase of drugs coming into the U.S. and stated that he would make Mexico and Canada pay by enacting “substantial tariffs.”
“We want to get along with everybody. But you know...it takes two to tango,” Trump remarked.
Even though he has a history of making false claims, Trump’s latest assertion begs the question: can he actually rename the Gulf of Mexico?
Trump didn’t provide details on how he handle the name change. However, the gulf has had several names throughout its history, with “Golfo de Mexico” first appearing on maps in the mid-16th century.
Immediately after the conference, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said on X that she would introduce a bill to officially change the name of the body of water, which runs from Mexico along the southern part of the United States.
The process is more complicated than that. The International Hydrographic Organization (in which the U.S. and Mexico are members) ensures all the world’s seas, oceans and navigable waters are surveyed fairly and even names some of them.
In 2015, then-President Barack Obama signed off on the renaming of Alaska’s Mount McKinley — named after President William McKinley, who apparently never visited — to Denali, a named commonly used among native Alaskans.
But even if Trump did rename the Gulf of Mexico, other countries don’t have to agree or recognize it.
This isn’t the first time a politician has floated around the idea. In 2012, former Mississippi State Rep. Steve Holland proposed a bill that also would have renamed the gulf into the “Gulf of America.” However, the Democrat insisted he was joking and used it as a way to denounce his Republican colleagues over their anti-immigrant beliefs.