Editor's Note: This article was written mid-January 2025. US governmental agencies and various additional entities have updated their terminology to reflect President Trump's Executive Order.
With the predictably unpredictable stroke of the Sharpie in initial hours as President of the United States, Donald Trump signed an executive order (EO) directing the federal government to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Trump said the Department of the Interior (DOI) is to “take all appropriate actions to rename as the ‘Gulf of America’ the US Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba in the area formerly named as the Gulf of Mexico.”
On Jan. 24, the DOI said it was implementing “name restorations that honor the legacy of American greatness, with efforts already underway,” citing the EO.
“As directed by the President, the Gulf of Mexico will now officially be known as the Gulf of America,” DOI said, noting the change would help ensure “that future generations of Americans celebrate the legacy of its heroes and historic assets.”
As part of that effort, the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN), under the purview of the DOI, “is working expeditiously to update the official federal nomenclature in the Geographic Names Information System to reflect these changes, effective immediately for federal use.” The BGN is responsible by law for standardizing geographic names throughout the federal government.
Elsewhere, change began earlier. Florida issued a press note Jan. 20 concerning the then-incoming “Gulf Winter Weather System” wherein Gov. Ron DeSantis warned of a system “moving across the Gulf of America” that was set to bring impactful winter weather to the state.
Curious, this editor reached out to the Governors of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves’s office responded quickly. As of this writing, his is the only office to have done so.
Asked specifically whether the state would update terminology to reflect the EO, Gov. Reeves, in an emailed statement from his press office, told OGJ, “l will call it the Gulf of America, because it is the Gulf of America! Mississippi is proud to be right on this beautiful resource!”
Beyond bordering states, on Jan. 21, the US Coast Guard issued a release noting its “immediate action” in support of the EOs that mentioned America’s “maritime borders, territorial integrity, and sovereignty.”
Adm. Kevin Lunday, the Coast Guard’s acting commandant, said he had directed a surge of assets “to increase Coast Guard presence and focus” to various areas, one being “the maritime border between Texas and Mexico in the Gulf of America.”
Of course, the totality of this ocean basin—which spans over 600,000 square miles and is also bordered by Mexico and Cuba—is not US territory. North and South America are together known as the Americas, but, less often, if envisioned as a unitary landmass, America in the singular. The language of this EO, however, doesn’t strike that chord.
While the US government can change the name of US geographical features in official domestic documents, and other countries could change their terminology, there is no obligation for the latter to do so. For one, the use of ‘Gulf of Mexico’ as included in various international laws and treaties won’t be automatically altered by change in the US.
With the rattle of changes coming from the new administration, this one…is not the most pressing. It will be implemented on the federal level, but for myriad reasons, it may be viewed by persons, entities, and various other governing bodies both inside and outside the US as a symbolic change, leaving room for the Gulf of Mexico to live on.
Mikaila Adams | Managing Editor - News
Mikaila Adams has 20 years of experience as an editor, most of which has been centered on the oil and gas industry. She enjoyed 12 years focused on the business/finance side of the industry as an editor for Oil & Gas Journal's sister publication, Oil & Gas Financial Journal (OGFJ). After OGFJ ceased publication in 2017, she joined Oil & Gas Journal and was named Managing Editor - News in 2019. She holds a degree from Texas Tech University.