This month, at a rambling news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced his last vision for revising the world map: “We are going to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. »
He went to reiterate with approval: “This covers a large part of the territory, the Gulf of America. What a beautiful name.
The Gulf of Mexico, which runs along much of Mexico’s eastern coast and borders five southern U.S. states, is a key international hub for shipping, fishing, oil drilling and other commercial activities. . The body of water was named thus more than four centuries ago before the United States or Mexico existed.
Of course, a unilateral change in the Gulf’s name by the U.S. president would not require approval from Mexico or any other country. Additional map adjustments recently proposed by the new leader include seize the Panama Canalwresting control of Greenland and annexation Canada.
Aside from the “beautiful ring” that Trump detected in the impending renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, the proposed move is consistent with his history of excessive antagonism toward Mexico, a country he says is composed of disproportionaterapists» and other criminals. And speaking of “beautiful,” Trump repeatedly demanded during his first term as president that Mexico foot the bill for the “big and beautiful wall», he planned to build on the US-Mexico border.
Indeed, Trump viciously accuses the United States’ southern neighbor of being responsible for the flow of “illegal” migrants and drugs northward – as if American demand for illicit substances and bipartisanship The American habit of destroying other people’s countries have nothing to do with fueling drug trafficking and migration. It is certain that the American economic situation is not either dependence on undocumented and exploitative labor plays no role in the equation.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to commit repetitive hypocrisy, Trump added the following warning to his announcement on the Gulf of Mexico at Mar-a-Lago: “And Mexico must stop allowing millions of people to flood into our country. » Either way, the rebranding of the Gulf will almost certainly put the Mexicans in their place.
At the very least, the “Gulf of America” project is less invasive than previous ideas from Trump’s brain, such as missile attacks on Mexico to combat drug cartels – organizations that owe their existence to the United States’ simultaneous demand for and criminalization of drugs.
The hubbub over the name change also serves as a convenient distraction from, you know, real issues — which is what Trump’s bombastic xenophobia is supposed to do in the first place.
Far-right U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for her part, wasted no time responding to Trump’s call to arms. Just two days after the Mar-a-Lago press conference in Florida, she introduced a bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico in accordance with the president-elect’s wishes.
According to According to the political site The Hill, the bill “would direct the chairman of the Board of Geographic Names under the Secretary of the Interior to rename all federal documents and maps within 180 days of enactment.” Greene added his own compelling sales pitch: “This is our sinkhole. The rightful name is the Gulf of America, and that is what the whole world should call it.”
It turns out this isn’t the first time U.S. politicians have proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico. An associated press article recalls an episode in 2012, when a member of the Mississippi state legislature introduced a bill to name parts of the body of water “American Gulf” affecting Mississippi beaches – “a decision the project’s author later called a ‘joke’.”
Meanwhile, further down the regional timeline, the Gulf of Mexico played host to another blatant example of imperial hubris that occurred in 1914 under the presidency of Democratic U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum website has commemorated that year, the “Tampico Incident”, named after the port city in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, on the Gulf of Mexico, where “US warships were stationed just off the coast to protect American oil interests.
The previous year, a coup d’état against Mexican President Francisco I Madero took place with the help of the then American ambassador to Mexico, giving rise to the rule of General Victoriano Huerta. In 1914, the new U.S. ambassador to Mexico supported opposition to Huerta, whose forces had the audacity to arrest nine American sailors while the fleet of American warships remained innocently stationed off the coast.
In the version of the incident provided by the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum, “the commander of U.S. forces in the area demanded a 21-gun salute and an apology from Huerta after the sailors were quickly released.” The Mexican government rejected these demands, “and President Wilson used the events as a reason to ask Congress for authorization of an armed invasion of Mexico.”
And there you have it: “Events quickly led to the occupation of [the port city of] Veracruz by American forces.
In other words, there are many reasons why people might object to the Gulf of Mexico being renamed.
And while Trump’s insistence on behaving like a caricature of himself makes it easier to portray him as some sort of American foreign policy aberration, ultimately it is pure imperialism. simple – and that’s something you just can’t do. rename.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
