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Mexico will send a letter to Google to question its decision to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico for users of Google Maps in the US.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said the US government did not have the right to rename the entirety of the Gulf of Mexico, much of which is in international waters.
“And, by the way, we are also going to ask that ‘América Mexicana’ appears [on Google Maps],” added Sheinbaum.
Sheinbaum previously responded to president Donald Trump’s pledge to rename the Gulf of Mexico with the joking suggestion that North America, including the US, be renamed “América Mexicana”, or “Mexican America”, according to a colonial-era map.
“Mexican America, that sounds nice,” joked Sheinbaum, echoing Trump’s comment that the Gulf of America had a “beautiful ring”.
On Monday, Google confirmed it would rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America for users in the US, after Trump’s executive order.
It will remain the Gulf of Mexico in Mexico, while users outside of the US and Mexico will see both names on Google Maps.
“We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” Google said in a post on X.
The back and forth over name changes has become an early bellwether of US-Mexico relations under the new Trump administration.
Mexico has been an early target of Trump’s executive orders, with which he also declared an emergency on the US-Mexico border and declared Mexican cartels as terrorist organisations.
There is also the looming threat of 25% tariffs on all goods that enter the US from Mexico, which the Trump administration has said will come into effect on 1 February.
This would cause economic upheaval between two countries that share almost $1tn in trade a year.
“We don’t think [the tariffs] will happen,” said Sheinbaum on Wednesday. “And if they do, we have our plan.”
