Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has chastised Google for kowtowing to Donald Trump by changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, and wants the United States to be known as “América Mexicana.”
Sheinbaum attacked Google after Trump unilaterally decreed in an executive order last week that the Gulf of Mexico would now be referred to as the “Gulf of America” – and Google quickly agreed to comply on its Google maps.
All that is required for such a name change is for U.S. documents to make the switch, Google explained in a statement Monday on X. Google stated that the move was consistent with its “longstanding practice of applying name changes” when they were simply “updated in official government sources.”
We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps. We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.
— News from Google (@NewsFromGoogle) January 27, 2025
The company also stated that it will “quickly” change the name of North America’s tallest peak, Alaska’s Denali, to Mt. McKinley, as Trump has requested in a move that has sparked outrage, once official documents are updated.
Trump issued an executive order to “honor America’s greatness.”
According to Google, Americans will see the “Gulf of America” on their Google maps, while Mexicans will see the “Gulf of Mexico,” and the rest of the world will see both.
Sheinbaum objected to Trump and Google’s name grab in a letter to the company, which she showed reporters on Thursday. However, if Google continues to change the names on its maps, Sheinbaum wants the United States to be identified as América Mexicana, she stated on Wednesday.
Sheinbaum recognizes that she has no authority to do so, just as Trump has no authority to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico, she stated.
The United States cannot unilaterally change the name of a body of water that it shares with Cuba and Mexico because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states that an individual country’s sovereign territory is limited to 12 nautical miles from the coastline, she explained.
“If a country wants to change the designation of something in the sea, it would only apply up to 12 nautical miles,” Sheinbaum told a news conference. “It cannot apply to the rest, specifically the Gulf of Mexico. This is what we explained in detail to Google.
In a tit for tat, Sheinbaum is asking Google to display the map of América Mexicana as including regions of the United States.
“We ask that when you put América Mexicana in the search engine, the map appears that we presented,” she told the company.
Trump has not responded to Sheinbaum’s demand.
Google has not responded to The Independent’s questions about whether it will include sections of the United States on América Mexicana on Google Maps after the switch is recorded in official Mexican documents, which appears to be the only Google requirement for such a change.
The name América Mexicana first appeared on maps in 1607. It includes several areas of what is now known as the United States.
