Can Trump Rename the Gulf of Mexico With an Executive Order?

The most important thing in any name is not what some official institution or a collection of old maps says. Spontaneous order tends to rule the day.

Amid the head-spinning flurry of "Day 1" executive orders that stretched presidential power to new (and potentially illegal) heights, President Donald Trump attempted to leave his mark on the globe.

Literally.

As part of an executive order promising to restore "names that honor American greatness," Trump told acting Secretary of the Interior Walter Cruickshank to rename the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America." Doing so, Trump wrote in the order, would reflect the gulf's status as a "flourishing economic resource and its critical importance" to America's economy and people.

But can he do that?

The answer is not straightforward. Technically, Trump ordered that the federal Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) should be updated to reflect the new name, and ordered the secretary to "remove all references to the Gulf of Mexico from the GNIS." Additionally, he ordered that "all federal references to the Gulf of America, including on agency maps, contracts, and other documents and communications shall reflect its renaming."

So, yes, as far as the federal government is concerned, the body of water between Florida and the Yucatan Peninsula will officially be the Gulf of America within the next month (the order allows 30 days for the change to be made).

Things are complicated by the fact that the Gulf of Mexico is a body of water that extends outside the borders of the United States—and thus beyond the bounds of federal law. There is no international body that officially names international bodies of water. The closest thing that exists is the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), which was established in 1921 and aims "to ensure all the world's seas, oceans and navigable waters are surveyed and charted."

But don't expect the IHO to get involved here. "Today, there is no formal international agreement or protocol in place for naming maritime areas," John Nyberg, the organization's director, told The New York Times.

In reality, the name of any body of water is the result of spontaneous order—we call the Atlantic Ocean by that name because that's just what everyone unofficially agrees it is.

There are plenty of spots on the map where that order is significantly more fuzzy. Saudi Arabia, for example, insists that the Persian Gulf is really the "Arabian Gulf"—which is a bit confusing since the gulf is adjacent to the Arabian Sea, and because "Arabian Gulf" was an old-time name for what's now called the Red Sea. Japan and South Korea have never agreed on what to call the body of water that lies between the two countries. What Americans know as the South China Sea has a bunch of different names in the non-China countries that border it.

History might count for something too. The Gulf of Mexico has been called that since at least the early 1600s. Earlier this month, in an apparent attempt at trolling Trump, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum publicly displayed a map made in 1607 that not only included the "Gulf of Mexico" label. Notably, it also marked much of the current United States as "Mexican America."

Of course, powerful nations have always sought to mark their influence on the map. And Trump is a master of branding, known for slapping his name on buildings that he didn't build or own. Is there some psychological edge gained by renaming the Gulf of Mexico just as Trump is about to embark on a campaign of trade and immigration policies that casts Mexico as an antagonist to American greatness? Perhaps, but it would be better for everyone involved to avoid such a conflict.

The most important thing in any name is not what some official institution or a collection of old maps says. "A rose by any other name," and so on. Language is ever-evolving in ways that go beyond what any government can control.

If most people start calling the body of water between Texas and Cuba "the Gulf of America," then that'll be what it is. Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) have already adopted the new nomenclature. What Google and Apple decide to label that body of water probably means more than anything else.

If, as is far more likely, yesterday's executive order ends up being widely ignored and quickly forgotten (and perhaps reversed by some future administration, as executive orders tend to be), then the Gulf of Mexico will remain "the Gulf of Mexico."