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US President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday (January 7) that he will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America”.
This follows a number of hostile statements in which Trump targeted US neighbours, from threatening to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, to referring to Canada, as the United States’ “51st” US state.
Trump’s “Gulf of America” statement was part of a larger tirade against issues of trade deficit and illegal immigration from Mexico. He said: “We help Mexico a lot, they are essentially run by the cartels… we’re going to change, because we do most of the work there and it’s ours… we’re gonna be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring… and it’s appropriate.”
In response, Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters that North America should be renamed “Mexican America”, referring to what the continent was called in some 17th-century maps. Surrounded by old maps on a screen at a briefing, Sheinbaum said sarcastically, “Mexican America, that sounds nice.”
What is the history behind these names? And can any country unilaterally change the name of a gulf?
Of the several theories surrounding the origins of the name “America”, the most frequently cited one stems from its first documented use on a map.
When Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492, he did not know that he had reached a different continent, previously unknown to most in Europe. (The Vikings had explored parts of North America some five centuries before Columbus). Columbus was followed many other European voyagers who decided to make the treacherous journey across the Atlantic.
Merely a decade after Columbus came the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. He was the first to write about the existence of a “New World” in his letters, although many of his accounts are today taken with more than a grain of salt. Nonetheless, when a German scholar named Matthias Ringmann caught hold of these letters, he and fellow cartographer Martin Waldseemüller decided to create a map of the world, which would include this newfound landmass. It would be a mammoth project, with 12 pieces of paper joined together.
On the bottom left was a narrow strip of land marked “America”, inspired by Amerigo Vespucci’s first name.
The US Library of Congress says of the map: “Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map… supported Vespucci’s revolutionary concept by portraying the New World as a separate continent… It was the first map, printed or manuscript, to depict clearly a separate Western Hemisphere, with the Pacific as a separate ocean. The map represented a huge leap forward in knowledge…”
Coming to Mexico, the story behind its name is often linked to a powerful empire that once controlled the region. It is said to be derived from the Nahuatl language spoken by the Aztecs who ruled between the 14th and 16th centuries. According to the Mexican government’s website, the most accepted theory about the origin of the word ‘Mexico’ “points out that it is formed from three Nahuatl words: metztli meaning ‘moon’; xictli which translates to ‘belly button’ or ‘centre’; and the affix -co indicating ‘place’.”
It refers to the olden city of Tenochtitlan, founded on an islet on the Texcoco Lake, previously known as the Moon Lake. Mexico’s official name (first used in 1824) is “United Mexican States”, inspired by the USA, since it too is a federation of states.
According to The New York Times, “The gulf’s name first appeared on maps used by Spanish explorers in the 16th century, well before the founding of the United States. On Wednesday, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico displayed a map from 1607 that included the Gulf of Mexico.”
It is a significant region for the US, especially in terms of energy resources. The government’s Energy Information Administration states: “Gulf of Mexico federal offshore oil production accounts for 14% of total US crude oil production and federal offshore natural gas production in the Gulf accounts for 5% of total US dry production. Over 48% of total US petroleum refining capacity is located along the Gulf coast, as well as 51% of total US natural gas processing plant capacity.”
The Associated Press reported that renaming would not be a “unilateral decision” of the US, and other countries don’t have to agree.
It added, “The International Hydrographic Organisation — 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. There are instances where countries refer to the same body of water or landmark by different names in their own documentation.”
For instance, multiple nations have made overlapping claims regarding territory and resources over the South China Sea. However, there is no prior dispute over the Gulf of Mexico and prior to Trump, no major US politician ever demanded it be renamed. Trump’s statement is being viewed in terms of his general criticism of Mexico.
John Nyberg, the director of the International Hydrographic Organization, also told The NYT there is “no formal international agreement or protocol in place for naming maritime areas”.
