United States President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
Trump, who will commence his second term as U.S. president on Jan. 20, announced his plan to change the name of the ocean basin during rambling remarks at a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump made the remarks about changing the Gulf’s name at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.
“We have a massive [trade] deficit with Mexico, and we help Mexico a lot; they’re essentially run by the cartels. And can’t let that happen; Mexico’s really in trouble, a lot of trouble; very dangerous place,” he said.
Trump subsequently, in a roundabout way, announced his intention to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico, in which both the United States and Mexico have territorial waters.
“And we’re going to be announcing at a future date, pretty soon we’re going to change because we do most of the work there, and it’s ours, … we’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring,” he said.
“That covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name, and it’s appropriate, it’s appropriate,” Trump said.
Economic Minister Marcelo Ebrard, attending a conference in Guadalajara Tuesday, asked by Mexican reporters to respond to Trump’s remarks about such a name change, responded briefly but definitively on the matter.
“If we saw each other in 30 years, the Gulf of Mexico will still be called the Gulf of Mexico,” he told reporters.
Can Trump actually change the Gulf’s name?
The Associated Press reported that Trump can “maybe” change the name of the Gulf of Mexico, which borders several U.S. and Mexican states. However, the news agency said that doing so is “not a unilateral decision, and other countries don’t have to go along.”
“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,” AP said.
“There are instances where countries refer to the same body of water or landmark by different names in their own documentation,” it added.
AP also said that it can be easier to make a name change “when a landmark or body of water is within a country’s boundaries.”
Perhaps changing the name of New Mexico to New America would be an easier option for Trump.
And Mexico could perhaps retaliate to any name change made by the 47th U.S. president by renaming the Gulf of California the Gulf of Baja California.
Mexico News Daily
