WASHINGTON — US lawmakers voted Thursday to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” turning into federal law an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in his first week in office.
The bill’s passage in the Republican-led House of Representatives is largely symbolic as other countries are under no obligation to use Trump’s new designation and the measure is unlikely to pass the Senate, where it requires Democratic votes.
Upon taking office, Trump signed executive orders changing the name of the body of water and also reverting the name of Denali, America’s highest peak, to its former moniker Mt. McKinley.
Trump’s renamings sparked criticism from Indigenous groups in Alaska and raised diplomatic concerns with Mexico, where President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested calling the United States “Mexican America.”
The House bill directs federal agencies to update their documents and maps to reflect the name change.
“Codifying the rightful renaming of the Gulf of America isn’t just a priority for me and President Trump. It’s a priority for the American people,” said far right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who authored the bill.
Republican moderate Don Bacon told CNN however the move “seems juvenile.”
“We’re the United States of America. We’re not Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany or Napoleon’s France… we’re better than this. It just sounds like a sophomore thing to do,” he said.
The name change would cost the federal government less than $500,000 over five years to update documents and maps, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
But schools, libraries and other public organizations would bear the costs of updating their materials, and Democrats have called the effort a waste of money.
“This bill does nothing to materially improve the lives of United States citizens—it is an unserious offering by the majority,” said a statement from the office of House Democratic whip Katherine Clark.
Trump barred the Associated Press from the Oval Office and from traveling on Air Force One in February because of the global news agency’s decision to continue referring to the “Gulf of Mexico.”
In its style guide, the AP notes that the Gulf of Mexico has “carried that name for more than 400 years” and the agency “will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.”
A federal judge said in April the “viewpoint-based denial of the AP’s access” was a violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and of the press.
The Trump administration is appealing the judge’s ruling ordering the White House to restore the AP’s access to official presidential events. — Agence France-Presse