With ‘Gulf of America,’ Trump Embraces His Imperialism Era

Photo: Evan Vucci/AP Photo

If you thought Donald Trump’s plans for world domination would stop at unhinged threats to take over Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal, think again. The president-elect fully entered his imperialism era on Tuesday, announcing offhandedly that he’s changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “the Gulf of America.”

The press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday morning was ostensibly about his economic agenda, but Trump played all the hits, trashing windmills, President Biden, electric heaters, special counsel Jack Smith, and various federal judges. Then, amid meandering criticisms of the United States’ neighbors, Trump mentioned, “We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America”:

We’re going to be announcing at a future date, pretty soon, we’re going to change, because we do most of the work there and it’s ours, we’re going to be changing — sort of the opposite of Biden where he’s closing everything up, essentially getting rid of 50 to 60 trillion dollars’ worth of assets — we’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. That covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name. And it’s appropriate, it’s appropriate. And Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country. They can stop them. And we’re going to put very serious tariffs on Mexico and Canada, because Canada, they come through Canada, too, and the drugs that are coming through are record numbers. 

Before he was even done taking questions, Representative Majorie Taylor Greene announced that she would introduce legislation to formally change the name of the body of water. It’s unclear if this is the announcement “at a future date” that Trump referred to, or if MTG sprang into action to make Trump’s rambling into reality.

This actually isn’t the first time a lawmaker has proposed the name change. Back in 2012, a Mississippi state representative introduced a bill calling for the part of the Gulf that touches his state to be renamed the “Gulf of America.” But the Democrat later said he wasn’t serious; the legislation was meant to satirize extreme GOP rhetoric.

Trump didn’t appear to be joking, though his proposal is as ridiculous as the post-9/11 attempt to make “freedom fries” happen. As the St. Augustine Record noted back in 2012, “the Gulf of Mexico” actually predates the United States. The name appears on maps as far back as the 16th century:

Baptiste Boazio, the illustrator and mapmaker of Francis Drake’s Caribbean cruise of attacks in the 1580s, used “Gulf of Mexico” on his map “View of Entire Route of Sir Francis Drake’s West Indian Voyage.” … The 1591 de Bry map also uses Gulf of Mexico.

But it seems Trump 2.0 is going to be all about him trying to reshape the world according to his whims. We’ll be lucky if we get out of the next four years as the United States of America, not the United States of Trump.