Gulf of Mexico or Gulf of America?

Four centuries of “Mexico”

The gulf lies between the southern coast of the United States, the east coast of Mexico and Cuba, and covers about 1,550,000 km².^[1] The name Gulf of Mexico has been used since at least the late 16th century. The English geographer Richard Hakluyt wrote of the “Gulfe of Mexico” in 1589, and a map of Francis Drake’s voyage from the same year shows the “Baye of Mexico”.^[1] Other names, such as the “Gulf of New Spain” and the “Florida Sea”, turned up on maps over the following centuries.^[1]

The 2025 order

Shortly after taking office, on 20 January 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14172, Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness. It praised the gulf’s oil, fisheries, ports and tourism and directed “that it officially be renamed the Gulf of America”.^[2][6] The same order changed Denali back to Mount McKinley.^[2]

Strictly, the order tells the Interior Secretary to rename “the U.S. Continental Shelf area” bounded by Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and reaching to the sea boundaries with Mexico and Cuba, and to remove the Gulf of Mexico from the federal names database.^[2] On 24 January the Interior Department said the new name took effect immediately for federal use.^[3] The US Board on Geographic Names adopted it for federal agencies.^[1]

“I am directing that it officially be renamed the Gulf of America.”^[2]

Mexico and the maps

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, answered with a joke, suggesting the United States be called “América Mexicana”, the name on a map from 1607.^[6] She then argued that a country can rename the sea only where it is sovereign, 12 nautical miles from its coast, and later that Trump’s order covered only the US continental shelf, not the whole gulf.^[6][5]

Google Maps switched to “Gulf of America” for users in the United States, following its practice of using names from official government sources.^[6] Users in Mexico still see the Gulf of Mexico, and everyone else sees both names.^[5] Mexico wrote to Google twice, and on 9 May 2025 Sheinbaum said Mexico had filed a lawsuit against the company.^[5][7]

The AP and Congress

The Associated Press kept “Gulf of Mexico” as its style, noting the US government’s new name, partly because it serves news outlets around the world.^[8] From February 2025 the White House barred its reporters from the Oval Office, Air Force One and dozens of other events, and the AP sued.^[8][9] A federal judge ruled for the AP in April 2025, but an appeals court panel sided with the White House that spring, and the case was argued again in November 2025.^[8][9]

Because a later president could reverse an executive order, the House of Representatives voted 211–206 on 8 May 2025 for a Gulf of America Act that would write the name into law. It then went to the Senate, where its future was uncertain.^[4]