Can Trump really rename the Gulf of Mexico? Why it could happen.

On By Littum

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A liberal comedian 15 year old satirical proposal renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” ​​has received a massive boost from President-elect Donald Trump.

Trump said at a news conference on Tuesday that it would be a “beautiful name” for the body of water that borders the US’s southern coast to the north, from Texas around to Florida. It also wraps around Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

A federal board has the power to rename geographic locations in the United States, and the Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene immediately promised to introduce a law to execute the plan. These changes will not necessarily be binding on the states bordering the gulf or on other countries.

“We’re going to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring to it,” Trump said. “The Golf of America, what a beautiful name and it’s fitting.”

According to federal officials over the past six centuries, The gulf has also been known as Golfo de Nueva España (Bay of New Spain) and Mar Di Florida (Sea of ​​Florida), reflecting its long contested history between France, Spain and other European countries as they colonized the New World.

The Gulf’s coastline is about 3,540 miles, more than half of which borders the coast of Mexico, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, though that doesn’t account for the countless bays and inlets.

Trump’s comments came as he discussed his plans to overturn new offshore oil and gas drilling restrictions approved by the defunct Biden administration.

Can Trump rename the Gulf of Mexico?

Trump — or any American — can propose a renaming. Under federal law, the U.S. government has a process by which it formally names and renames geographic features, from rivers and lakes to mountains. Overseen by the Board of Geographic Names, it happens more than you might think, and in recent years federal officials have changed historic place names deemed offensive, especially to blacks and Native Americans.

States are not required to use the same names as the federal government, although they usually do.

“The BGN is responsible by law for standardizing geographic names across the federal government and discourages name changes unless there is a compelling reason.” says the Board for Geographical Names on its website. “Furthermore, changing an existing name simply to correct or re-establish historical use should not be a primary reason for changing a name.”

In Colorado, both the state and federal governments agreed to change the name of the state’s highest mountain to Mount Blue Sky.

It was formerly known as Mount Evans, but was renamed at the urging of Native American tribes because it honored a former territorial governor associated with the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. Reflecting a typical renaming process, the mountain was formally renamed by Colorado officials in 2022, with federal officials following suit the next year.

There is one caveat: While the United States can change the name by which golf is known, other countries are not required to use it. Several international bodies help to mediate these discrepancies, including the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names.

“As fundamental to the need for global standardization of geographical names, UNGEGN promotes the registration of locally used names that reflect a country’s language and traditions,” the organization says on its website. “…Geographers, linguists, cartographers and planners are among the specialists who develop the tools, exploit the technology, provide outreach and share the belief that accurate and consistent use of a common framework of geographic names can bring significant benefits to the world. “

How quickly could the Gulf of Mexico be renamed?

Under normal circumstances, it takes at least six months to rename a place in the United States, according to the Board of Geographic Names. It allows time for consultations with states, tribes, mapmakers and other interested parties.

Greene in one mail to Xformerly known as Twitter, released a draft of her bill, The Gulf of America Act of 2025, and called on Congress to pass it within 180 days.

“It’s our gulf. Its rightful name is The American Gulf, and that’s what the whole world should refer to it as,” she wrote. “Congress needs to take the mandate of the Trump agenda seriously, and that means acting quickly to pass it.”

Where did this idea to rename the Gulf come from?

This is not the first time someone has suggested a name change.

In 2010, The Colbert Report host Steven Colbert created a “Gulf of America Fund” to help clean up the Gulf after the Deepwater Horizon spill that dumped 168 million gallons of oil over nearly 60,000 square miles of the Gulf.

“I don’t think we can call it the Gulf of Mexico anymore,” Colbert said in 2010. “We broke it, we bought it.”

At the time, Colbert hosted the satirical Comedy Central show. He is now the host of The Late Show on CBS and a longtime Trump antagonist. The Colbert Report routinely mocked conservatives, including the kind of nationalism espoused by Trump and his MAGA followers.

In 2012, former U.S. Rep. D. Stephen Holland of Mississippi proposed a name change as a joke to mock his Republican colleagues, who he said would apparently push something or someone Mexican out of the state. That proposal never went ahead.

What are the risks of renaming places?

For navigation purposes, consistency in naming is essential. That’s why the federal government’s Board on Geographic Names mandates that all federal agencies use its database, known as the Geographic Names Information System. The federal GNIS contains more than one million named places in the United States.

The UN Group plays a similar role at the international level together with International Hydrographic Organization and the International Maritime Organization.

There’s also a broader social conversation about names happening: Studies have shown that as European colonizers renamed geographic features around the world, it diminished and in some cases erased the history of indigenous people who had first lived there.

“Power was inscribed on the landscape through place names, which helped create a sense of belonging for the colonizer and were ultimately a tool for exercising control over social and physical environments,” Beth Williamson of the University of London wrote in a study from 2023. .

Gene Tucker, a history professor at Temple College in Texas, said changing place names often provoke unexpected emotional reactions. He cited the 2023 renaming of the Army post in his hometown of Killeen, Texas, to Fort Cavazos, a change that still angers his parents.

“Renaming a place hurts a lot of people’s feelings,” said Tucker, who earned his Ph.D. on Spanish-American place names and is a member of the Texas Map Society. “If you change the name of the place I grew up next to, you change my history, and then you change me. It’s like telling us that everything about us is wrong.”

Many counties have ongoing disputes over shared geographic features, Tucker said, including China’s disputed claims in the Pacific Ocean. And the Rio Grande River on the southern border of the United States is known as the Rio Bravo in Mexico.

Tucker said Mexico arguably has a stronger claim to naming the bay since its coastline is longer than the U.S. portion, but noted that the U.S. can call it pretty much whatever it wants.

“We could call the Gulf of Mexico Trump Bay, but nobody else would have to listen to us,” he said, laughing.

After being told that the federal Place Naming Board traditionally prohibits naming places honoring someone until they have been dead for at least five years, he replied, “Back then we could call it Texas Bay. It has a nice ring to it.”

What happened to Mount Denali?

The mountain was controversially named after McKinley over the objections of many Alaskansand was renamed Denali, Alaska in 1975. Federal maps still called it McKinley until the Obama administration changed it to Denali in 2015.

Trump also recently suggested that he wanted to rename Alaska’s Mount Denali after the name given by white Americans to the nation’s highest mountain: Mount McKinley, which honored former President William McKinley.

Contributor: CA Bridges, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida