Just three days into his second term as president, and Republican leader Donald Trump has followed through on his promise to change the official name of the Gulf of Mexico.
Apparently, however, all is not as it seems, and the title alteration comes with quite a few unique T&Cs…
At a news conference in Mar-a-Lago, Florida earlier this month (7 January), 78-year-old Trump described the ‘Gulf of America’ as having a ‘nice ring to it’, amid conversations about potential immigration restrictions at the Mexican border.
“The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name and it’s appropriate,” the Republican said at the time.
Similar comments were made as part of Trump‘s official inauguration speech, delivered at Washington D.C.’s Capital Rotunda on Monday (20 January) – seemingly sending attendee Hilary Clinton into a fit of giggles.
By the sounds of things, however, Trump was deadly serious about his immigration policy plans, specifically with regards to Central and South America.
Elsewhere in the speech, the convicted felon vowed to bring back the ‘Golden Era’ of America by signing a controversial executive order which would declare a ‘national emergency’ at the US-Mexican border.
At the time, he also declared that illegal entry to America would ‘immediately be halted’, and that ‘criminal aliens’ would be returned’ where they ‘came from’.
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Trump previously described the name, the ‘Gulf of America’ as ‘beautiful’ (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Just days later, and Trump has seemingly followed up on his first promise – to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the ‘Gulf of America’ on official maps of the United States.
However, changing the name of something that has had its title since the late 1600s isn’t an easy process, and as such, there’s a catch – not every country has to abide by the new title.
The Board of Geographic Names (BGN) has long been the federal body in charge of the titles of our world’s countries, and is largely known for its reluctance to make amendments.
On top of this, it apparently cannot enforce any name changes on a global scale.
This point was also reiterated by Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, the president of Mexico, who – in response, and with Trump’s supposed logic – argued that the US should rename itself ‘Mexican American’ based on a 17th century map which supports this title for the area.
She also asserted that both Mexico and the rest of the world would continue to use the Gulf of Mexico as the body of water’s official name.
Trump has already made several changes to immigration policy (CHIP SOMODEVILLA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
In the days since becoming president, Trump has already made a number of changes to American immigration legislation.
Already, an executive order has designated Mexican drug cartels as a ‘foreign terrorist organisation’, and border crossings from Mexico have been designated an ‘invasion’.
From now on, US military service members could be sent to the central American hotspot to act as immigration and border enforcement officers, seemingly as a means of boosting Trump’s promised mass deportation program.
On top of this, the US Refugee Admission program has been suspended, which will be reviewed every 90 days
