One of the choices President Donald Trump made when he started his second term was to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. This decision upset a lot of people, including the government of Mexico.
After Donald Trump signed the order to rename the body of water in the southern part of the United States to the ‘Gulf of America’, some folks protested. There were funny memes created about the president, and many thought it was just a joke.
It seems that the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, didn’t find it funny at all. On May 9, she said that her government would take legal action against Google because Google Maps changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the ‘Gulf of America’.
It looks like Mexico also made ‘repeated requests’ for Google not to change the name of the Gulf, but those requests were ignored.
The order to rename the Gulf happened right after Donald Trump started his second term as president of the US.
The president of Mexico told the reporters that were there that she is moving forward with suing Google, but she didn’t share any details. She mentioned: “The lawsuit has already been filed. All we want is for the order from the US government to be followed.
“The US government only refers to the part of the US continental shelf as the Gulf of America, not the whole gulf, because they don’t have the power to name the entire gulf.”
The lawsuit was submitted after the Mexican Foreign Relations Ministry officially requested Google not to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. Chris Turner, the VP of government affairs and public policy for Google, had talked to Sheinbaum before.
The Google representative stated that Google will not change the decision they have already made. If you are in the United States, you will see the water labeled as the ‘Gulf of America’. If you are in Mexico, it will still be called the ‘Gulf of Mexico’.
If you are in any other part of the world, you will find it called ‘The Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)’.
Google has a rule and is standing by the changes, claiming that they are following ‘longstanding maps policies fairly and consistently in all areas’.
The Trump administration also responded to the Associated Press by taking away their White House privileges after they declined to change the name of the Gulf in their articles.